tihxaxy  of  trhe  t:heoloc[(cal  Seminary 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


PRESENTED  BY 

The  Estate  of  the 
Rev.  John  B,  Wiedinger 

BR  125  .A56  1910 
Andrews,  George  A.  1870- 
What  is  essential? 


■  '■  '^^  t7^. 


Wl^ati^  tmntiali 


What  is  Essential? 


BY 


GEORGE  ARTHUR  ANDREWS 


NEW  YORK 
THOMAS  Y.  CROWE  LL  &  CO. 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1910,  by  Thomas  Y.  Crowell  &  Co. 


Published  September,  1910 


I^reface 


wo  travelers  were  one  day 
occupying  the  same  seat  in  a 
railway  train.  One  of  them 
was  a  very  youthful  student  of 
the  "New  Theology."  The 
other  was  a  confirmed  Roman 
Catholic.  As  the  two  journeyed  they  fell  into 
conversation,  and  soon  from  matters  incon- 
sequential they  passed  to  a  serious  considera- 
tion of  the  nature  of  the  Christian  religion. 
The  discussion  waxed  long  and  eloquent,  but 
it  ended  precisely  where  it  began.  The  "New 
Theologian"  left  the  car  convinced  that  the 
Catholic  was  a  hopeless  bigot,  while  the  Catho- 
lic departed  in  full  assurance  that  the  "New 
Theologian"  was  a  willful  heretic.  Yet  both 
men  were  followers  of  the  same  Christ.  The 
inability  to  understand  each  other  was  due 
solely  to  the  different  view  points  from  which 
they  interpreted  the  religion  of  Christ. 
Herein  lies  the  reason  for  the  prevalence  of 
[v] 


Puiatt 

seemingly  contradictory  conceptions  concern- 
ing the  nature  of  the  Christian  religion, — in 
unsympathetic  view  points.  The  view  points 
of  the  traditionalist  and  of  the  rationalist,  of  the 
Catholic  and  of  the  Protestant,  of  the  con- 
servative and  of  the  radical,  of  the  conformist 
and  of  the  independent,  of  the  seer  and  of  the 
doer, — these  view  points  are  mutually  exclu- 
sive. Therefore  the  conceptions  derived  from 
the  view  points  appear  at  times  hopelessly  at 
variance. 

And  herein  lies  the  reason  for  an  inquiry  con- 
cerning the  essentials  of  our  religion, — in  the 
need,  among  the  variety  of  changing  and  con- 
tradictory conceptions  of  religion,  for  the  dis- 
cernment of  that  which  is  necessarily  involved 
in  its  nature.  This  is  the  object  of  our  search, 
the  elemental,  the  vital,  the  very  essence  of  the 
religion  of  Christ. 

This  little  book  is  more  of  an  inquiry  than  an 
answer.  It  is  a  suggestion  and  not  an  assertion. 
It  will  be  some  time  before  the  very  bed-rock 
bottom  of  the  essence  of  our  religion  is  reached 
by  the  inquiring  mind.  Perhaps  it  can  never  be 
[vi] 


Pvtfact 

reached.  Be  that  as  it  may,  here  the  attempt  is 
to  make  but  a  few  soundings,  in  the  hope  that 
some  human  craft,  perhaps  in  danger  of  re- 
ligious shipwreck,  may  be  piloted  amid  the 
dangers  of  unsatisfying  speculations  to  a  place 
of  firm  anchorage. 

The  author  gratefully  acknowledges  his  in- 
debtedness to  those  friends  who  have  helped 
him  in  his  work  by  the  criticism  of  his  manu- 
script. Especially  does  he  wish  to  thank 
Professor  William  Newton  Clarke  of  Colgate 
University,  for  valuable  literary  and  theological 
suggestions. 


[vii] 


Contentis 


CHAP,  PAGE 

I.  Who  is  the  Essential  Christian  ? 

1.  The  Ascetic  Conception  3 

2.  The  Conformist  Conception  7 

3.  "Back  to  Christ"  11 

4.  The  Imitation  of  Jesus  15 
II.  What  is  the  Essential  Christian  Creed? 

1.  A  Popular  Demand  of  the  Day  23 

2.  The  Unessential  Christian  Belief  27 

3.  The  Creed  of  Christ  32 

4.  The  Omissions  from  Christ's  Creed  37 

5.  The  Essential  Creed  of  the  Christian  40 

III.  What  is  the  Essential  Christian  Experience? 

1.  The  Need  of  Personal  Experience  47 

2.  A  Prevalent  Misapprehension  51 

3.  The  Religious  Experience  of  Jesus  57 

4.  The  Interference  of  Sin  66 

5.  The  Essential  Experiences  of  the  Christian  73 

IV.  What  is  the  Essential  Christian  Revelation  ? 

1.  The  Bible;  its  Accepted  Preeminence  83 

2.  The  Bible;  its  Fundamental  Helpfulness  87 

3.  The  Revelation  in  Christ  90 

4.  The  Revelation  in  Humanity  94 

5.  The  True  Test  of  All  Inspired  Revelation  97 
V.  What  is  the  Essential  Christian  Church? 

1.  The  Historic  Church  105 

2.  The  Church,  a  Means  to  an  End  109 

[ix] 


Contend 


3.  The  Distinctive  Function  of  the  Church  114 

4.  The  Assistance  of  Church  Membership  119 

5.  The  Value  of  PubUc  Worship  123 
VI.  What  is  the  Essential  Christian  AcrmrY? 

1.  Christianity  and  Personal  Salvation  131 

2.  Christianity  and  Personal  Sacrifice  137 

3.  Christianity  and  Philanthropy  143 

4.  The  Quest  for  the  Kingdom  of  God  147 


[xl 


I^i^at  (0  cBjsjienttal? 


[I] 


CHAPTER  FIRST 


Sec.  1.  The  Ascetic  Conception 

N  English  writer  a  few  years 
ago  attempted  to  describe  the 
follower  of  Christ  in  a  novel 
which  he  called  "The  Chris- 
tian." The  title  was  a  mis- 
nomer. The  stern,  joyless, 
fanatical  John  Storm  was  no  more  like  the 
Christian  than  John  the  Baptist  was  like  Jesus 
Christ.  But  in  fashioning  his  hero  after  the 
likeness  of  Christ's  forerunner  instead  of  in  the 
likeness  of  Christ  himself,  Hall  Caine  was  but 
following  a  custom  which  has  been  more  or  less 
prevalent  for  nearly  twenty  centuries. 
It  is  indeed  true  that  modern  asceticism  is  of  a 
much  milder  type  than  that  which  characterized 
mediaeval  Christianity.  At  first  sight,  it  may 
seem  that  the  family  man,  who  to-day  denies 
himself  meat  only  on  Fridays,  can  claim  very 
[3] 


WW  ijS  €)3jsenttal 


little  resemblance  to  the  man  of  the  past  cen- 
turies, who  on  all  the  days  of  his  companionless 
existence  partook  only  of  bread  and  water. 
But  though  the  practice  of  self-denial  is  now 
somewhat  less  rigorous,  the  motive  for  the 
self-denial  is  too  often  fundamentally  the  same. 
It  is  a  self-denial  which  has  its  purpose  only  in 
a  form  of  selfishness.  The  celibate  monk  lived 
on  bread  and  water  not  for  any  good  that  his 
abstinence  might  bring  to  others,  but  only  for 
the  eternal  good  he  hoped  to  attain  for  himself. 
All  abstinences  for  like  purposes  must  be  like- 
wise characterized.  They  are  selfish,  and 
selfishness  in  any  form  is  unchristian. 
Yet  the  ascetic  type  of  the  Christian  is  with  us 
wherever  we  turn.  There  are  men  and  women 
everywhere  who  separate  themselves  from  so- 
called  worldly  indulgences  and  amusements, 
who  are  wont  to  practice  only  the  passive  vir- 
tues and  to  obey  only  the  prohibitive  com- 
mandments. Their  motive  is  the  same  as  that 
which  prompted  the  monastic  to  deny  himself 
domestic  felicity  and  physical  sustenance.  They 
deny  themselves  now  in  order  that  by  and  by 
[4] 


they  may  save  themselves.  So  prevalent  even 
to-day  is  this  ascetic  conception  of  Christianity 
which  has  its  motive  in  self-seeking,  that  we 
find  preachers  and  evangelists  still  urging  men 
and  women  to  forego  certain  social  amusements 
and  personal  indulgences  for  fear  of  what  will 
happen  to  them  if  they  do  not,  or  for  the 
reward  that  may  come  to  them  if  they  do. 
Young  people,  when  asked  to  avow  the  life  of 
Christ,  inevitably  inquire  first  what  they  must 
give  up  to  be  Christians,  and  too  often  are  they 
taught  to  weigh  the  cost  of  a  demanded  denial 
only  against  the  value  of  a  promised  reward. 
"You  must  give  up  this  or  that  self-indulgence 
and  pleasure,"  they  are  told,  "but  you  will  ob- 
tain in  return  peace  in  this  world  and  in  the 
world  to  come  eternal  life." 
Now,  if  the  one  purpose  of  the  Christian  life 
were  to  save  one's  self,  this  ascetic  conception  of 
Christian  living  would  be  tenable.  Assuming 
this  purpose,  monasteries  and  nunneries  would 
follow  as  the  legitimate  and  logical  conse- 
quences, and  the  mortification  of  the  flesh 
would  become  indeed  an  admirable  virtue.  If 
[S] 


I^l^at  ijs  €j80ential 


personal  salvation  into  heaven  be  the  one  su- 
preme purpose  of  the  Christian  religion,  not 
only  must  we  highly  commend  the  "  Christian" 
of  Mr.  Caine's  imagination,  but  also  must  we 
commend  all  living  Christians  who  have  denied 
themselves  any  pleasure  of  this  world  in  order 
that  they  may  attain  the  bliss  of  the  world  to 
come. 

But  this  selfish  object  is  not  and  cannot  be  the 
purpose  of  the  true  follower  of  the  unselfish 
Christ.  Personal  salvation  is  only  one  of  the 
results  of  Christian  living, — never  its  purpose. 
He  who  would  save  his  life  must  lose  it,  said 
Jesus.  And  the  only  way  to  attain  salvation, 
he  declared,  was  not  to  seek  it  as  an  end  in 
itself,  but  to  find  it  as  a  by-product  of  self- 
forgetful  service. 

One  may  be  an  ascetic  and  still  be  a  Christian, 
but  his  asceticism  does  not  make  him  a  Chris- 
tian. The  essence  of  Christianity  does  not  lie 
in  the  self-denial  of  him  who  hopes  thereby  to 
gain  something  more  desirable  for  himself. 
One  cannot  condemn  another  for  such  self- 
denial.  It  is  every  man's  privilege  to  forego  a 
[6] 


/ 


pleasure  to-day  for  the  enjoyment  of  an  an- 
ticipated greater  pleasure  to-morrow.  We  all 
do  that,  but  we  do  it  because  we  are  prudent, — 
not  because  we  are  Christians. 
The  Christian  virtue  of  self-denial  is  the  denial 
of  self  for  the  sake  of  the  welfare  of  someone 
else.  Only  such  self-denial  should  be  dignified 
by  the  name  of  sacrifice.  Only  such  can  prop- 
erly be  said  to  inhere  in  essential  Christianity. 

Sec.  2.  The  Conformist  Conception 

A  man  of  a  somewhat  cynical  turn  of  mind 
once  made  the  statement  that  so  far  as  he  had 
observed,  Christianity  was  but  another  name 
for  conformity.  By  this  remark  he  evidently 
meant  to  assert  that  the  Christian  profession 
was  not  a  matter  of  inner  principles  but  of 
outer  practices. 

He  had  observed,  it  may  be,  that  those  who  had 
professed  to  be  followers  of  Christ  and  those 
who  had  made  no  such  profession  were  appar- 
ently actuated  by  the  same  life-purposes.  He 
doubtless  had  seen  professed  Christians  who 
were  quick-tempered  and  unforgiving.    He  had 

[7] 


3^]^at  (0  Cis^ential 


seen  those  who  were  proud  and  arrogant, 
opinionated  and  bigoted.  He  had  seen  pro- 
fessed Christians  in  business  who  manifested  a 
selfish  and  grasping  disposition,  perhaps  even 
those  who  stooped  to  base  and  immoral  methods 
to  increase  their  personal  profit. 
It  is  possible  that  he  had  observed  that  pro- 
fessed Christians,  even  in  their  organized  Chris- 
tian activities,  were  not  always  actuated  by  the 
spirit  of  humility  and  of  gentle  forbearance. 
It  is  barely  conceivable  that  he  had  seen  church 
members  wrangling  for  positions  of  honor  in 
the  very  Church  of  God,  and  quarreling  with 
their  brethren  in  Christ  over  matters  of  per- 
sonal opinion  and  of  personal  preference. 
Yet  this  man  had  likewise  observed  that  all 
these  proud,  bigoted,  selfish,  quarreling  Chris- 
tians were  conformists.  They  practiced  certain 
Christian  forms  and  participated  in  certain 
Christian  ceremonies.  For  instance,  they  went 
to  church  on  Sunday  morning.  They  repeated 
together  certain  formulas  and  articles  of  faith. 
They  bowed  reverently  during  public  prayer. 
In  some  churches  they  responded  audibly  to  the 
[8] 


prayers  with  commendable  fervency.  They 
listened  politely  to  the  rhetorical  sentences  of 
cultured  preachers.  But  after  the  weekly  serv- 
ice was  over  they  went  back  to  their  homes  to 
take  up  again  their  schemes  of  business  and 
political  trickery,  or  to  renew  their  struggle  for 
social  supremacy. 

Though  this  picture  is  happily  somewhat  over- 
drawn, the  man  is  perhaps  excusable  for  his 
cynical  inference.  In  these  days  of  the  popu- 
larity of  the  Christian  religion,  conformity  to 
accepted  Christian  customs  has  become  indeed 
a  serious  menace  to  vital  Christianity.  There 
is  no  temptation  more  insidious  than  the  temp- 
tation to  allow  the  habitual  to  become  the 
formal.  The  acts  which  we  perform  with  re- 
current regularity  are  always  those  acts  which 
are  in  most  danger  of  losing  their  vitality.  This 
is  true  whether  the  acts  in  their  significance  be 
domestic,  industrial,  social  or  religious.  The 
home-maker  is  in  danger  from  the  treadmill 
of  routine.  The  clerk  in  the  office  is  in  im- 
minent peril  of  becoming  a  lifeless  machine. 
The  lady  on  her  customary  round  of  social  calls 
[9] 


Wi^at  ijs  t^mitial 


is  extremely  liable  to  make  the  calls  in  a  listless 
and  perfunctory  manner.  We  need  not,  there- 
fore, be  surprised  if  the  Christian  in  his  re- 
current religious  duties  is  in  danger  of  deterio- 
rating into  a  formalist. 

For  indeed  the  expression  of  the  Christian  life, 
as  well  as  the  expression  of  any  other  phase 
of  human  life,  demands  its  routine  of  duties. 
There  must  be  Christian  habits  as  well  as 
business  and  social  habits.  The  habitual  con- 
formist to  accepted  Christian  customs  is  no 
more  to  be  condemned  than  he  who  conforms 
his  business  methods  to  the  conventional  busi- 
ness customs  of  his  day. 

But  when  thus  we  admit  the  necessity  for  regu- 
lar Christian  customs  and  therefore  the  ad- 
visability of  habitual  Christian  conformity,  we 
do  not  therefore  admit  the  necessity  of  a  loss 
to  Christian  vitality.  In  the  recurrent  Christian 
ceremonies  there  is  indeed  danger  of  such  a 
loss;  sadly  must  we  confess  that  many  in  their 
conformity  have  seemed  to  meet  with  loss;  but 
the  loss  is  not  necessary.  When  a  man  goes  to 
his  habitual  business  equipped  with  the  purpose 
[10] 


that  through  the  daily  routine  he  will  attain 
success,  his  conformity  to  business  customs  will 
not  endanger  his  business  achievement.  So 
when  a  man  is  determined  to  let  recurrent 
Christian  observances  be  to  him  an  expression 
of  his  purpose  to  succeed  in  Christian  living, 
that  man  is  in  no  serious  danger  of  losing  the 
vitality  of  his  religion. 

Our  cynical  friend,  then,  was  wrong  in  his 
excusable  inference.  Christianity  is  not  con- 
formity. At  its  worst,  conformity  may  become 
a  substitute  for  Christianity.  At  its  very  best, 
it  can  only  be  considered  as  one  expression  of 
Christianity.  No  man  is  a  Christian  because 
he  conforms  to  prescribed  Christian  customs. 
If  he  does  conform,  it  must  be  only  because 
through  the  habitual  participation  in  Christian 
observances  he  hopes  the  better  to  succeed  in 
Christian  living. 

Sec.  3.  "Back  to  Christ'" 

A  decade  or  more  ago  the  cry  "  Back  to  Christ" 

became    the    shibboleth    of    many    Christian 

thinkers,    some   of  whom   were   possessed   of 

[11] 


3^]^at  tj3  CjJjsetxttal 


temperaments  distinctly  iconoclastic.  As  used 
by  these  the  cry  became  the  signal  for  the 
attempted  disparagement  of  historic  Chris- 
tianity. The  extremists  of  this  type  of  thinkers 
would  allow  no  necessary  growth  from  the  seed 
planted  by  Jesus.  They  insisted  that  his  reli- 
gion must  be  considered  as  having  sprung 
from  him  full  grown  and  completely  armed, 
just  as  Pallas  Athene  is  fabled  to  have  sprung 
from  the  head  of  Zeus.  Of  course,  no  writer 
said  exactly  this  in  words,  but  this  is  a  log- 
ical inference  from  their  destructive  asser- 
tions. 

When  we  demand  that  the  Christian  of  to-day 
shall  be  no  different  from  the  contemporary 
follower  of  the  historic  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  we 
make  the  demand  that  Christianity  of  all  of 
God's  forces  shall  be  the  only  force  which  shall 
not  be  subject  to  His  universal  law  of  develop- 
ment. When  we  make  this  one  exception  for 
our  religion,  we  make  of  our  religion  the  one 
thing  in  all  God's  world  which  is  not  only  un- 
natural but  which  is  inert  and  lifeless.  If 
Christianity  be  a  living  thing,  it  must  be  a 
[12] 


growing  thing.     If  it  be  divine,   it  must  be 
capable  of  development. 

The  cry  "Back  to  Christ"  when  taken  thus  to 
preclude  all  development  from  Christ,  would 
lead  us  to  illogical  and  impossible  conclusions, 
and  to  most  absurd  practices.  "Back  to 
Christ"  would  be  back  to  Jewry.  If  we  should 
do  exactly  as  Christ  did,  not  only  should  we 
travel  bareheaded  and  clothe  our  feet  in  san- 
dals, but  we  should  observe  the  Jewish  Sab- 
bath, and  worship  in  the  synagogue.  We  should 
have  for  our  sacred  books  only  the  Law  and 
the  Prophets,  for  "Back  to  Christ"  literally 
interpreted  involves  the  loss  to  us  of  the  re- 
ligious value  of  all  the  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, except  indeed  the  biographies  contained 
in  the  Gospels.  If  we  should  go  back  to  Christ 
in  this  literal  sense,  we  should  go  back  of  the 
Church,  back  of  all  forms  of  organized  Chris- 
tianity, back  of  all  attempts  at  systematic 
Christian  teaching,  back  to  a  time  of  an  unco- 
ordinated individualism,  from  which,  deprived 
of  its  organized  and  historic  development,  there 
would  result  only  anarchy  and  chaos. 
[13] 


W^at  (0  tmmtial 


But,  fortunately,  we  cannot  thus  go  back  to 
him.  Try  as  hard  as  we  may,  we  cannot  take 
the  fruit  of  two  thousand  years  of  Christian 
growth  and  make  of  it  only  the  seed  from 
which  the  fruit  has  developed.  We  cannot  do 
that,  any  more  than  we  can  cause  the  apple  in 
our  hand  to  dwindle  to  the  tiny  black  seed 
which  held  the  germ  of  the  apple's  life.  We 
may  not  claim  that  the  fruit  of  Christianity  is 
yet  fully  grown.  The  apple  may  be  small  and 
unripe,  but  it  is  nevertheless  something  differ- 
ent from  its  germinal  seed,  something  different 
and  something  more.  That  is  because  it  is  the 
fruition  of  a  living  germ,  and  both  the  germ 
and  the  process  of  growth  are  divine. 
Yet  "  Back  to  Christ "  in  a  sense  we  must  all  go 
for  our  conception  of  his  religion.  Back  to 
him,  not  for  the  fruit  of  Christianity,  but  for 
its  germ.  Back  to  him  must  we  go  for  the 
eternal  life-giving  principle  which,  through  the 
sunlight  of  God's  favor  and  the  raindrops  of 
the  tears  of  many  sacrifices,  has  grown  until  it 
has  civilized  nations,  aye,  and  which  shall  grow 
until  "all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  have  be- 


come  the  Kingdom  of  our  Lord  and  Savior 
Jesus  Christ." 

For  though  we  must  expect  our  fundamental 
Christianity  of  to-day  to  be  something  other 
and  more  than  the  Christianity  of  two  thousand 
years  ago,  there  can  be  in  our  developed  and 
developing  religion  only  that  whose  embryo 
was  in  Christ.  The  germinal  seed  of  our 
Christian  religion  is  Christ  himself.  It  is  not 
any  teaching  of  Christ,  much  less  is  it  any 
doctrine  about  Christ,  but  Christ  in  his  very 
life  and  character.  All,  therefore,  that  inheres 
in  the  essential  nature  of  Christianity  must 
have  its  origin  in  Christ  and  must  find  its  ex- 
pression in  a  likeness  to  Christ.  When  we 
have  understood  what  likeness  to  Christ  in- 
volves in  our  present  day,  we  have  understood 
the  very  essence  of  Christianity.  When  we 
have  applied  that  knowledge  to  our  own  lives, 
we  have  become  Christians. 

Sec.  4.  The  Imitation  of  Jesus 

Some  Gttompt  to  imitate  Christ  has  never  been 

absent  from  historic  Christianity.     Too  often, 

[15] 


I^i^at  tj8  CjSjsenttal 


however,  the  imitation  of  him  has  been  literal 
instead  of  spiritual,  an  imitation  of  the  human 
setting  of  his  life  instead  of  an  appropriation  of 
the  divine  spirit  that  was  within  him. 
Jesus  was  poor,  so  certain  monks  took  upon 
themselves  the  vow  of  poverty.  Jesus  never 
married,  so  churchmen  became  celibates.  Jesus 
washed  his  disciples'  feet,  so  the  Pope  annually 
washes  the  feet  of  twelve  dirty  beggars.  Jesus 
was  baptized  in  early  manhood,  and  we  have  a 
whole  denomination  who  make  adult  baptism 
the  basis  of  their  denominational  separation. 
Jesus  is  reported  to  have  healed  the  sick  with 
the  touch  of  his  hand,  and  behold  we  are  sur- 
rounded by  myriads  of  quack  practitioners, 
Christian  Scientists  and  faith-healers,  who  deny 
the  efficacy  of  every  other  school  of  healing  but 
their  own,  and  who  eschew  all  the  remedies 
provided  in  God's  world  and  discovered  by 
God's  children. 

Jesus  shared  the  popular  beliefs  of  his  day. 
He  believed  in  demonology,  in  the  existence  of 
a  personal  devil,  and  in  the  control  of  human 
individuals  by  the  devil's  emissaries.  There- 
[16] 


fore  we  have  a  page  in  the  history  of  our  own 
country  sullied  by  the  superstition  of  witchcraft. 
Therefore,  too,  we  have  even  to  this  present  day 
those  who  persist  in  attributing  the  deviltry  of 
their  own  meannesses  to  the  subjugation  of  an 
omnipotent  arch  enemy  of  the  omnipotent 
God. 

But  no  attempt  to  imitate  the  exact  things 
which  Jesus  did,  or  to  share  his  first-century 
beliefs,  can  be  called  essentially  Christian,  for 
none  are  in  very  essence  Christlike.  The 
reality  of  my  likeness  to  my  great-grandfather 
does  not  consist  in  my  wearing  knee  breeches 
and  adorning  my  head  with  a  peruke.  Nor 
does  it  consist  in  my  refusal  to  accept  the 
verities  of  science  which  have  been  demon- 
strated since  his  day.  I  am  like  my  ancestor 
because  in  me  there  is  something  of  the  spirit 
that  was  in  him,  because  I  can  appreciate  his 
ideals  and  life-purpose,  because  I  have  like 
aspirations  and  similar  methods  of  endeavor. 
But  my  aspirations  and  my  methods  of  work 
I  must  apply  to  twentieth-century  conditions. 
The  very  development  of  the  Christian  religion 
[17] 


^i^at  t^  t^^mtial 


has  so  modified  and  ennobled  the  conditions 
of  hfe  that  no  man  can  claim  to  be  Christlike 
to-day  who  does  only  what  Jesus  did  twenty 
centuries  ago.  To  be  like  Christ,  he  must 
apply  the  spirit  of  Christ  to  the  century  in 
which  he  himself  is  living. 

Some  unsatisfactory  attempts  have  been  made 
of  late  years  to  imagine  what  Christ  would  be 
like  if  he  should  come  to  Chicago  or  to  Boston. 
The  simple  truth  is,  that  in  such  an  instance 
Christ  would  outwardly  be  much  like  the  ordi- 
nary American  citizen  of  to-day.  He  would 
believe  the  truths  of  the  twentieth  century  just 
as  in  his  time  he  believed  the  truths  of  the  first 
century.  He  would  accept  the  conclusions  of 
modern  science.  He  would  use  the  help  of 
modern  discoveries.  The  motive  of  his  life 
would  be  the  same;  its  manner  of  expression 
would  be  different.  He  would  still  alleviate 
human  suffering,  he  might  even  cure  the  sick, 
but  probably  he  would  do  it  to-day  by  the  ap- 
plication of  a  knowledge  of  physiology,  psy- 
chology and  hygiene  rather  than  by  the  per- 
formance of  miracles.  He  would  still  forgive 
[18] 


sin,  but  he  would  not  appear  to  explain  sin  as 
the  work  of  a  personal  devil. 
If  Christ  should  come  to  America  to-day  he 
would  not  be  crucified,  nor  would  he  be  put 
to  death  by  any  more  modern  and  refined 
method  of  capital  punishment.  He  would  not 
be  put  to  death  at  all.  He  would  not  sufi^er 
even  the  martyrdom  of  active  hatred.  He 
would  suffer  to-day  from  passive  indifference. 
Nowhere  in  all  the  length  and  breadth  of  this 
tolerant  land  would  men  pick  up  stones  to  cast 
at  him,  but  many  would  pass  him  by  with 
averted  faces  in  their  selfish  pursuit  of  pleasure 
and  of  profit. 

Here,  too,  in  the  sufferings  of  Christ  must  we 
separate  the  essential,  eternal  element  from  the 
form  in  which  it  was  clothed  in  the  age  in 
which  he  lived.  It  was  not  the  Roman  cross 
which  made  Christ  suffer;  it  was  the  sin  of  the 
people  which  brought  him  to  the  cross.  It  was 
not  the  hatred  of  his  followers  which  made  him 
a  "man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief"; 
it  was  the  selfishness  which  caused  them  to  hate 
him  who  was  pure  and  loving.  He  would  have 
[19] 


^]^at  ijs  CjSjsential 


"gathered  them  to  himself"  and  they  "would 
not."  That  unwillingness  of  selfishness  caused 
the  cross  in  the  first  century.  In  the  twentieth 
century  it  would  cause  only  indifference.  But 
the  suffering  of  the  Savior  would  be  the  same 
so  long  as  men  "would  not." 
Imagining  thus  a  different  setting  to  the  life  of 
Christ,  though  our  imagination  must  prove 
hopelessly  inadequate,  we  nevertheless  find 
help  in  differentiating  the  actual  experiences  of 
Jesus  from  the  essential  spirit  which  actuated 
him.  Thus,  the  actual  poverty  of  his  condition 
was  incidental  because  he  happened  to  be  born 
into  the  family  of  a  poor  carpenter;  but  his 
humility  of  spirit  was  essential.  His  baptism 
by  John  in  the  Jordan  was  incidental,  the  mode 
of  his  consecration  being  determined  by  the 
time  and  the  place;  but  the  purpose  of  his 
baptism,  to  manifest  his  consecration  to  his 
life-work,  was  essential.  The  form  in  which 
temptation  was  presented  to  him  was  inci- 
dental; the  power  to  resist,  essential.  The 
method  of  his  ministry  was  occasioned  by  the 
times  in  which  he  lived,  the  miracles,  therefore, 
[20] 


may  be  considered  incidental;  but  the  loving 
purpose  of  the  ministry  was  essential.  So,  the 
physical  suffering  of  the  tragedy  of  Calvary 
was  incidental,  occasioned  by  the  malignant 
hatred  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  and  the 
cruel  cowardice  of  a  self-seeking  Roman  gov- 
ernor; but  the  spiritual  suffering,  sorrow  for 
unrepentant  sinners,  was  essential. 
To  be  like  Christ,  then,  is  to  be  humble  in 
spirit,  to  be  consecrated  to  service,  to  be  strong 
to  resist  temptations,  to  be  patient  and  sympa- 
thetic in  ministry,  and  to  be  sorry  for  unre- 
pentant sinners.  These  Christlike  qualities  the 
Christian  of  to-day  must  apply  to  the  condi- 
tions of  to-day. 

The  possession  of  these  qualities  will  lead  him 
to  self-denial,  but  the  self-denial  will  be  for 
the  purpose  of  helping  others  instead  of  saving 
himself. 

The  possession  of  these  qualities  will  pre- 
sumably lead  him  into  conformity  with  some 
prevalent  type  of  Christian  observance,  a  con- 
formity wherein  he  may  publicly  acknowledge, 
his  consecration  to  service,  and  whereby  he 
[21] 


Wl^at  10  €^^mtial 


may  make  his  service  as  efficacious  as  possible. 
But  his  conformity  will  be  an  expression  of  his 
Christlikeness.  It  cannot  in  itself  cause  his 
Christlikeness. 

The  possession  of  these  qualities  in  the  present 
stage  of  the  development  of  Christ's  religion 
will  compel  the  Christian  to  do  certain  things 
which  were  not  thought  of  in  Christ's  time.  It 
may  force  him  to  believe  some  things  which 
were  unbelievable  before  Christ's  leaven  had 
leavened  the  mass  of  the  world's  ignorance. 
But  the  spirit  which  vitalizes  his  beliefs  and  ac- 
tuates his  deeds  will  be  in  him  the  fruit  of  the 
germinal  spirit  of  Christ. 

The  essential  Christian  is  one  who  strives  to  be 
actuated  by  the  spirit  of  Christ. 


[22] 


CHAPTER  SECOND 

Creen? 


Sec.  1.  A  Popular  Demand  of  the  Day 


T  is  quite  the  fashion  in  these 
days  to  belittle  any  definite 
form  of  C  h  r  i  st  i  a  n  belief. 
Creed  subscription  has  been 
relegated  to  the  realms  of  ob- 
livion not  only  by  the  outside 
critics  of  the  religion  of  Jesus,  but  even  by  some 
of  its  most  prominent  exponents.  Give  us  a 
practical  religion,  not  a  speculative  philosophy, 
is  a  demand  of  the  day.  And  in  answer  to  this 
demand,  episcopates  and  presbyteries  are  over- 
hauling their  ancient  formulas  of  faith,  while 
some  independent  churches  have  already  filed 
away  the  creeds  of  their  fathers,  substituting 
therefor  simple  declarations  of  Christian  pur- 
pose, and  short  covenants  of  church  loyalty. 
This  popular  demand  for  a  practical  religion 
[23] 


Wi^at  i^  C^jsential 


is  expressive  of  a  particular  stage  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  religion  of  Christ.  Indeed  it  is 
one  of  the  signs  which  seem  to  indicate  the 
beginning  of  a  new  epoch  of  Christian  activ- 
ity. If  one  were  to  attempt  to  describe  in  a 
word  the  manifestation  of  the  Christian  religion 
which  is  characteristic  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, one  would  use  the  word  philanthropy. 
In  former  less  busy  and  more  philosophic 
centuries,  Christians  were  naturally  interested 
in  a  desire  to  understand  God.  Those  were 
the  days  of  theology.  But  in  this  practical, 
busy  age,  speculative  explorations  into  the 
realm  of  the  abstruse  and  intangible  have 
ceased  to  be  of  paramount  interest.  To-day, 
instead  of  asking,  "What  can  I  believe  about 
God?"  men  are  asking,  "What  can  I  do  for 
men?" 

This  is  a  change  of  interest  in  the  religion  of 
Christ,  but  by  no  means  a  lack  of  interest.  It 
is  a  change  which  we  should  naturally  expect, 
if  we  but  remembered  that  the  religion  of 
Jesus,  like  everything  else  in  God's  world,  is 
a  development,  and  if  we  gave  due  weight  to 
[24] 


W^at  i^  tt)t  &mitial  CreeD 

the  modifying  truth  that  the  development  of 
rehgion  must  run  parallel  to  the  development 
of  society. 

The  century  just  opening  to  us  is  a  century 
which  is  marked  by  intense  activity  along  all 
lines  of  human  interest.  It  will  not  be  a  great 
literary  age.  It  will  be  an  age  impatient  of 
abstruse  thinking  and  of  philosophical  reason- 
ing. The  brains  of  this  century  will  be  devoted 
for  the  most  part  to  the  pursuit  of  tangible 
achievements.  Scientists  will  turn  their  atten- 
tion more  and  more  towards  discoveries  which 
shall  be  not  merely  interesting  but  useful. 
Writers  and  lecturers  will  deal  more  exclu- 
sively with  themes  that  are  closely  connected 
with  the  everyday  work  of  a  busy  world.  Phi- 
losophers and  essayists  will  be  practical  utili- 
tarians, at  least  in  what  they  contribute  to  the 
world's  thought.  But  by  far  the  most  of  the 
brain  effort  of  the  next  century  will  be  directed 
towards  industry  and  commerce,  government 
and  finance,  civic  and  social  improvements. 
Since  the  universal  trend  of  the  times  is  toward 
activity,  the  trend  of  the  religion  of  Jesus 
[25] 


W}^at  i^  e^^mtial 


must  be  towards  a  Christlike  control  of  that 
activity.  Preachers,  evangelists  and  Christian 
reformers  in  this  century  must  tell  men  how 
they  may  act  like  Christ  rather  than  merely 
what  they  must  think  about  Christ.  Churches 
must  increasingly  inspire  their  members  to  the 
ministry  of  the  poor,  the  sick,  and  the  un- 
fortunate, and  they  must  not  be  content  if  they 
only  furnish  a  place  of  worship  for  their  own 
supporters.  If  clergymen  and  church  officers 
will  but  heed  the  signs  of  the  times,  the  com- 
ing years  will  be  productive  of  great  progress 
toward  the  Christian  solution  of  the  problems 
of  industry  and  politics,  towards  the  betterment 
of  the  condition  of  the  poor,  and  towards  the 
decrease  of  the  selfishness  of  the  rich.  It  will 
be  a  century  made  notable  by  the  successful 
operation  of  many  forms  of  Christian  charity, 
and  by  the  development  of  new  enterprises  for 
the  Christianization  of  the  world. 
Every  man,  then,  who  is  interested  in  the  ad- 
vance of  the  Kingdom  of  God  in  the  world 
should  hail  the  cry  for  the  revision  or  the  abo- 
lition of  church  creeds  as  the  herald  of  new 
[26] 


Wt^at  i^  ti^e  (Bmntial  Cteed 

opportunities  for  Christian  activity.  For,  be 
sure  of  this,  there  would  be  no  such  demand 
if  men  were  indifferent  to  the  Christian  rehgion. 
It  is  because  they  are  practically  and  truly  re- 
ligious that  they  are  impatient  of  the  repetition 
of  old  formulas  which  have  in  themselves  no 
necessary  connection  with  Christian  living.  The 
demand  of  the  day  is  not  for  the  abolition  of  any 
belief  which  may  be  necessary  to  rational  Chris- 
tian activity,  but  it  is  a  demand  most  insistent 
and  imperative  for  the  abolition  of  all  beliefs  that 
are  not  necessarily  involved  in  the  very  essence 
of  the  religion  of  Jesus. 

Sec.  2.  The  Unessential  Christian  Belief 

The  unessential  Christian  belief  is  that  belief 
of  the  intellect  which  has  no  direct  bearing  upon 
the  conduct  of  the  life.  In  other  words,  it  is 
the  belief  which  is  not  convertible  into  action. 
If  in  itself  it  can  neither  make  a  man  better, 
nor  inspire  his  effort,  then  it  is  unessential.  It 
may  be  true,  but  it  is  not  vital.  It  may  be  rea- 
sonable and  logical,  but  it  is  not  fundamental. 
Christianity  is  the  art  of  living,  not  a  mere 
[27] 


W}^at  i^  C^jsenttal 


science  of  life.  The  Christian,  therefore, 
must  be  considered  only  as  an  artist.  As  an 
artist,  he  needs  a  belief  in  certain  practical 
verities.  But  he  can  leave  to  the  scientist  all 
philosophical  speculations  which  may  seek 
to  account  for  those  verities. 
For  illustration,  suppose  a  man  is  set  to  till 
the  soil.  If  he  is  to  be  a  successful  agricul- 
turist, he  must  believe  certain  fundamental 
truths  concerning  the  rotation  of  the  seasons 
and  the  fertility  of  the  soil.  Did  he  not  be- 
lieve these  verities,  as  a  rational  man  he  would 
not  plow  his  field  nor  plant  his  seed;  hence 
he  could  not  reap  his  harvest.  But  he  does  not 
need  to  understand  all  the  scientific  explanations 
of  atmospheric  pressure,  of  climatic  changes, 
and  of  the  chemical  properties  of  the  soil.  He 
needs  to  believe  that  the  seed  will  grow,  else  he 
will  not  plant  it,  but  he  need  not  be  compelled 
to  believe  all  the  speculative  theories  which  try 
to  account  for  the  seed's  inherent  vitality. 
If  we  accept  this  analogy,  we  are  ready  for  a 
general  statement  concerning  the  Christian's 
beliefs  that  are  unessential.  The  Christian, 
[28] 


since  he  is  a  rational  being,  must  believe  that 
the  seed  which  he  drops  will  grow.  He  must 
believe  that  a  good  deed  will  have  a  good  influ- 
ence, or  he  will  not  try  to  perform  good  deeds. 
He  must  believe  that  a  life  of  sacrifice  is  more 
noble  than  a. life  of  selfishness,  or  he  will  not 
try  to  live  such  a  life.  But  to  be  successful 
in  living  Christ's  life,  he  does  not  need  to  be- 
lieve the  theologian's  scientific  theories  con- 
cerning the  reason  why  good  deeds  bear  good 
fruit;  nor  yet  need  he  accept  either  the  oldest 
or  the  newest  theological  explanation  of  the 
origin  of  love.  The  explanation  may  be  cor- 
rect; that  is,  some  explanation  may  be  correct. 
Evidently  all  explanations  cannot  be  true  in 
all  their  details,  for  many  of  them  are  inher- 
ently contradictory.  But  whether  the  theo- 
logical explanation  be  true  or  not,  is  now  be- 
side the  question.  It  is  not  vital.  Just  as  the 
verity  of  sunlight  is  independent  of  all  astro- 
nomical explanations  concerning  the  origin  of 
the  sun,  so  the  verity  of  the  life  of  Christian 
love  is  independent  of  all  theological  explana- 
tions of  the  nature  of  that  love. 
[29] 


Wi^at  i^  C^jsmtial 


It  does  not  follow,  therefore,  that  theology  has 
no  reason  for  existence.  That  would  be  like 
the  affirmation  that  astronomy  and  chemistry 
are  unneeded  sciences.  But  theological  specu- 
lation is  only  for  the  Christian  man  of  science. 
The  Christian  practitioner  need  accept  no  par- 
ticular dogma  of  speculative  theology.  He  need 
believe  only  the  verities  which  he  can  convert 
into  action  and  which,  therefore,  alone  can  af- 
fect the  cultivation  of  his  character. 
Should  one  attempt  to  enumerate  the  specific 
doctrines  of  the  Church  that  are  thus  to  be 
classified  as  unessential,  he  would  surely  be 
severely  criticised.  In  prudence,  it  would  be 
much  safer  to  leave  to  each  individual  the  ap- 
plication of  the  general  principle  which  has  here 
been  stated.  At  the  risk,  however,  of  adverse 
criticism,  for  the  sake  both  of  clearness  and 
of  comprehensiveness,  the  application  of  the 
principle  must  be  made  somewhat  specific. 
If  the  proposition  be  true  that  Christ  is  the 
vital  principle  of  the  Christian  religion,  and 
that  essential  Christianity  is  Christlikeness,  we 
should  not  hesitate  to  deduce  from  this  prop- 
[30] 


osition  the  following  corollary  relating  to  the 
Christian  belief.  The  Christian's  essential  be- 
lief is  that  which  has  grown  from  Christ.  And, 
on  the  contrary,  all  beliefs  are  unessential  which 
do  not  have  their  origin  in  him. 
This  assertion  does  not  mean  to  imply  that 
there  can  be  no  enlargement  and  development 
of  Christian  doctrine.  There  must  be  growth. 
As  Christianity  itself  is  a  development  arising 
from  the  application  of  Christ's  principle  of 
life  to  succeeding  conditions,  so  the  truths  of 
Christianity  must  be  developed  along  parallel 
lines.  There  will  always  be  a  demand  for  a 
new  theology  to  keep  pace  with  the  growth 
of  vital  religion.  One  may  to-day  reasonably 
believe  truths  about  God  and  Christ,  which 
Paul  and  Augustine  did  not  believe, — but  to 
be  a  Christian  he  need  not  believe  any  truth 
which  has  not  grown  naturally  and  inevitably 
from  the  truth  that  actuated  Christ  himself. 
The  dogmas  of  theology  which  Jesus  did  not 
make  the  basis  of  his  life  may  safely  be  con- 
sidered as  unnecessary  to  the  foundation  of 
the  Christian's  life. 

[31] 


Wl^at  i^  (Bmntial 


Sec.  3.  The  Creed  of  Christ 
In  the  attempt  to  understand  the  essential 
verities  of  Christ's  religion  very  much  has  been 
said  and  written  concerning  what  Jesus  taught 
others  to  beheve,  but  too  httle  has  ever  been 
suggested  concerning  what  Jesus  himself  be- 
lieved in  its  relation  to  the  demanded  Christian 
belief.  Yet  since  Jesus,  however  we  may 
interpret  him  theologically,  must  have  been 
in  his  earthly  life  mentally  akin  to  all  other 
men,  he  must  as  a  rational  being  have  taught 
certain  things  only  because  first  he  believed 
certain  truths.  He  must  have  acted,  not  from 
impulse,  but  from  reasonable  motive.  Behind 
all  his  works  and  his  deeds  there  must  have 
been  actuating  convictions.  Being  thus  like 
all  mankind  a  man  of  reasoning  motives,  his 
character  cannot  be  adequately  explained  with- 
out reference  to  the  faith  in  him  which  deter- 
mined his  character. 

What  was  the  vital  creed  of  Jesus?  What 
reason  had  he  for  the  early  consecration  of  him- 
self to  the  service  of  mankind  ?  What  faith 
empowered  his  resistance  of  temptation,  and 
[32] 


enabled  his  patient,  sympathetic  ministry  for 
others  ?  What  conviction  sustained  him  in  asro- 
nizing  Gethsemane  and  on  sacrificial  Calvary  ? 
Can  we  answer  such  questions  as  these  ? 
It  is  always  hazardous  to  detach  the  isolated 
sayings  of  any  man  and  to  affirm  that  here  he 
expresses  his  very  self,  that  this  is  the  man's 
deepest  conviction.  For  we  cannot  really 
know  any  man's  deepest  convictions  until  we 
know  the  whole  of  his  life.  Perhaps  perfectly 
to  comprehend  the  inmost  thoughts  and  the 
actuating  motives  of  the  Savior  of  men,  would 
mean  that  we  must  know  him  as  we  can  never 
know  him  from  the  meager,  broken  accounts 
of  the  Gospel  narratives.  Yet  so  much  of 
himself  has  been  revealed  in  these  narratives 
that  a  sympathetic  and  unprejudiced  student 
of  the  Gospels  cannot  fail  to  catch  at  least 
some  glimpse  of  the  actuating  convictions  of 
his  life. 

Let  the  earnest  seeker  after  truth  turn  again 
to  the  biographies  of  Jesus  with  the  one  pur- 
pose to  discover  the  faith  which  actuated  him, 
and  he  will  find  persisting  throughout  all  the 
[33] 


W)^at  i^  €^^mtial 


narrative  of  his  life  three  controlling  ideas. 
From  the  many  passages  which  incorporate 
these  ideas  the  following  are  selected  because 
of  their  conciseness: 

"  I  must  work  the  works  of  him  that  sent  me." 
(John  9:4.) 

"  The  Son  of  man  came  to  seek  and  to  save  that 
which  was  lost."     (Luke  19: 10.) 
"From   this   time   Jesus   began   to   show   his 
disciples  that  he  must  suffer  many  things." 
(Matt.  16:21.) 

The  first  two  passages  are  the  avowal  of  the 
purpose  of  his  life;  the  last  expresses  his  con- 
viction concerning  the  method  by  which  the 
purpose  was  to  be  fulfilled. 
If  one  were  searching  for  evidence  concerning 
Christ's  belief  about  matters  which  did  not 
primarily  influence  his  life,  he  would  find  it 
necessary  to  add  to  the  passages  which  express 
these  three  fundamental  and  controlling  ideas. 
One  could  discover  words,  for  example,  which 
seem  to  indicate  his  belief  in  his  own  preex- 
istence.  Certainly  it  could  be  shown  that  he 
believed  in  his  postexistence.  The  narratives 
[34] 


I^i^at  tjs  tl)e  (iBj3)3enttal  CteeD 

contain  some  evidence  that  he  believed  in  a  time 
of  final  judgment,  and  in  the  separation  of  the 
good  from  the  bad.  Most  assuredly,  too,  one 
could  infer  that  Jesus  believed  in  the  Kingdom 
of  God  in  the  heart  of  the  individual,  and  in  the 
prevalence  of  the  Kingdom  in  all  the  world. 
But  these  beliefs  were  not  the  primary,  actuat- 
ing forces  in  his  life.  He  neither  said  nor 
implied  that  he  performed  deeds  of  kindness, 
because  he  believed  he  had  been  with  God  or 
because  he  hoped  to  go  to  God.  He  did  not 
heal  the  sick  nor  forgive  sinners  because  he 
hoped  thereby  to  win  for  himself  a  reward  in 
the  day  of  judgment.  He  did  not  teach  that 
he  gave  himself  "a  ransom  for  many"  simply 
because  he  hoped  thus  to  hasten  the  advance 
of  God's  Kingdom  in  the  world.  He  ministered 
to  men,  he  loved  men,  he  died  for  men,  because 
he  believed  that  he  must  work  the  works  of  God 
and  because  he  believed  that  work  was  to  save 
lost  souls  by  sacrifice. 

From  these  passages,  then,  which  reveal  all  of 

the  belief  of  Jesus  which  primarily  actuated 

his  conduct,  with  some  temerity  but  with  rea- 

[35] 


W}^at  i^  €isjscntial 


sonable  certainty  we  can  deduce  Christ's  funda- 
mental creed.  Let  us  arrange  this  creed  in  the 
form  of  Articles  of  Faith. 

THE   CREED    OF   JESUS 

1.  I  believe  that  God  is  my  Father,  whose  work 
I  must  do. 

2.  I  believe  that  man  is  my  brother,  whose 
soul  I  must  save. 

3.  I  believe  that  I  must  serve  my  Father  and 
save  my  brother  by  the  sacrifice  of  love. 

Only  three  simple  articles,  but  what  a  com- 
plete creed  they  make!  The  Fatherhood  of 
God,  the  brotherhood  of  man,  and  the  com- 
pulsion to  sacrifice. 

But  as  we  think  of  this  attempt  to  formulate 
the  creed  of  Jesus,  we  must  remember  that 
the  compulsions  it  suggests  were  to  him  not 
the  obligations  of  hateful  duty  but  the  joyful 
service  of  abundant  love.  It  was  his  Father 
whose  work  he  must  do,  the  Father  w^hose  na- 
ture of  purity  and  justice  and  truth  he  knew, 
the  Father  whom  he  loved  and  who  loved  him. 
It  was  his  brother  whom  he  must  save,  the 
[36] 


I^l^at  ijs  ti^e  €mtntial  CreeD 

brother  for  whom  his  soul  yearned,  the  brother 
whom  he  would  "gather  to  himself  as  the  hen 
gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings."  It 
was  the  sacrifice  of  love  which  he  must  per- 
form; not  the  obligation  of  stern  necessity, 
but  the  sweet  voluntary  offering  of  love's  one 
way  of  service. 

So  we  must  think  of  the  "must"  in  the  creed 
of  Christ  only  as  the  sweet  compulsion  of  his 
filial,  fraternal,  unselfish  love.  And  we  shall 
not  understand  the  creed  in  its  full  significance 
to  the  Savior  himself  until  we  flood  it  with  the 
light  of  that  ecstasy  of  voluntary  offering  which 
found  its  sublime  expression  in  the  earnest  wish 
of  his  heart,  "  that  my  joy  might  remain  in  you." 

Sec.  4.  The  Omissions  from  Christ's  Creed 

When  one  seeks  honestly  and  earnestly  for 
the  actuating  faith  of  Christ's  life,  he  must  be 
struck  first  of  all  by  the  many  notable  omis- 
sions from  the  creed  that  actuated  his  conduct 
and  formed  his  character.  Rev.  John  Watson, 
of  revered  memory,  never  made  a  truer  obser- 
vation than  when  in  his  "Mind  of  the  Master" 
[37] 


I^l^at  i^  €^mxtial 


he  said  that  "no  one  can  fail  to  detect  an 
immense  difference  between  the  teachings  of 
Christ  and  the  creeds  which  have  been  made 
by  Christians.  ...  It  does  not  matter  what 
creed  you  select,  the  Nicene,  or  the  Westmin- 
ster Catechism,  they  all  have  a  family  likeness 
to  each  other,  and  a  family  unlikeness  to  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  They  deal  with  differ- 
ent subjects,  and  they  move  in  a  different  at- 
mosphere." 

How  lamentably  true  are  these  words!  Ex- 
amine the  creeds  of  men.  They  dwell,  as 
Dr.  Watson  recalls,  "on  the  relation  of  the 
three  Persons  in  the  Trinity;  on  the  divine  and 
human  natures  in  the  person  of  Jesus;  on  his 
miraculous  birth  through  the  power  of  the 
Holy  Ghost;  on  the  connection  between  his 
sacrifice  and  the  divine  law;  on  the  nature  of 
the  penalty  Christ  paid,  and  its  reference  to 
the  atonement;  on  the  purposes  of  God  re- 
garding the  salvation  of  individuals,  and  the 
collision  between  the  human  will  and  the  di- 
vine will;  on  the  means  by  which  grace  is 
conveyed  to  the  soul;   on  the  mystery  of   the 

rssi 


Wl)at  i^  tl^e  emntial  CreeD 

sacraments;  and  on  the  condition  of  the  hu- 
man soul  after  death." 

Now,  compare  these  concerns  of  the  creeds  of 
men  with  the  concerns  of  Christ's  creed.  On 
all  these  questions  which  have  constituted  the 
body  of  the  Christian  dogma  of  churches  Jesus 
was  notably  silent.  Not  one  of  them  was  an 
actuating  principle  in  his  life. 
An  examination  of  that  most  popular  and 
most  simple  of  the  creeds  used  in  public  wor- 
ship, the  so-called  Apostles'  Creed,  reveals 
the  astounding  fact  that  this  creed  contains 
for  the  most  part  only  those  beliefs  which 
Christ's  creed  omitted,  and  that  it  omits  al- 
most all  that  Christ's  creed  contained.  The 
Apostles'  Creed  omits  all  reference  to  Christ's 
life,  passing  from  his  miraculous  birth  immedi- 
ately to  his  physical  sufferings.  The  creed  of 
Jesus  was  concerned  almost  wholly  with  his 
life.  If  he  believed  in  his  miraculous  birth,  he 
never  said  anything  about  it,  much  less  did 
he  make  such  a  belief  a  cause  for  his  life  of 
service.  If  he  knew  the  exact  relation  which 
he  in  his  personality  bore  to  the  personality 
[39] 


I^i^at  tjs  CjSjsential 


of  God,  he  spoke  of  that  relationship  only 
incidentally,  claiming  for  himself  only  that  he 
did  the  Father's  work.  Even  what  he  believed 
about  his  death  had  apparently  no  reference 
to  sacrificial  atonement,  but  rather  to  the 
inevitable  method  of  service.  He  believed 
that  he  must  serve  God  and  save  men,  there- 
fore he  believed  that  in  a  world  of  sin  he  must 
suffer. 

Startlingly  significant  is  the  conclusion  of  these 
considerations.  Practically  all  that  the  his- 
toric faith  of  the  church  has  demanded  as  a 
basis  of  church  membership  and  of  Christian 
fellowship  is  absent  from  the  actuating  con- 
victions of  Christ  himself.  In  other  words, 
that  which  has  been  demanded  of  the  followers 
of  Christ  as  the  basis  of  their  Christlike  living 
was  not  at  all  the  basis  of  Christ's  life. 

Sec.  5.  The  Essential  Creed  of  the  Christian 

From  the  necessary  negations  of  the  previous 
section  we  turn  with  relief  to  the  more  positive 
consideration.  When  he  who  would  be  a 
follower  of  Christ  asks  to-day,  "What  must  I 
[40] 


believe  to  be  a  Christian?"  the  answer  is  two- 
fold: "If  you  would  follow  Christ  you  must 
accept  the  beliefs  of  Christ  which  made  him 
what  he  was,"  and,  "If  you  would  really  be 
Christlike,  you  must  accept  these  beliefs  as  he 
accepted  them." 

In  view  of  what  has  already  been  said  in  the 
last  two  sections,  the  first  answer  needs  no 
illustration  and  but  little  comment.  The  be- 
liefs of  Jesus  which  formed  his  character  and 
influenced  his  ministry  were  the  three  beliefs  in 
the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  brotherhood  of 
man,  and  love's  compulsion  to  sacrificing  serv- 
ice. Since  these  were  the  formative  influences 
in  his  life,  one  cannot  reasonably  hope  to  follow 
that  life  without  their  acceptance.  Besides  these 
truths,  the  Christian  may  believe  anything  that 
seems  to  him  reasonable.  He  may  accept  im- 
plicitly the  longest  creed  in  Christendom,  but 
that  will  help  him  only  theologically.  Accept- 
ing such  a  creed,  he  may  be  called  by  his  fellows 
soundly  orthodox,  but  to  be  truly  Christian,  he 
need  accept  only  those  beliefs  which  were  fun- 
damental to  Chi-ist  himself. 
[41] 


W^at  i^  Cjsjsential 


The  second  answer  perhaps  needs  more  expla- 
nation. The  Christian  must  accept  the  actuat- 
ing faith  of  Christ  as  Christ  accepted  it.  A 
moment's  reflection  will  convince  anyone  that 
Christ's  creed  was  not  accepted  merely  in 
an  intellectual  sense,  but  in  an  ethical  sense. 
There  was  a  personal  significance  to  each  of 
the  three  articles  of  his  belief.  There  was  an 
irresistible  compulsion  about  them  all. 
He  did  not  believe  merely  in  a  "Father  Al- 
mighty, Maker  of  heaven  and  earth."  He 
believed  that  God  was  his  Father,  and  that  be- 
lief carried  with  it  a  compulsion  to  filial  obedi- 
ence and  service. 

He  did  not  believe  in  the  brotherhood  of  man 
in  vague,  universal  terms,  simply  because  the 
logic  of  his  thinking  compelled  him  to  see  that 
this  behef  was  the  inevitable  consequence  of 
the  Fatherhood  of  God.  He  believed  that 
men  were  his  brethren,  and  again  the  belief 
carried  with  it  a  compulsion,  the  compulsion 
to  fraternal  helpfulness.  His  brother  he  must 
save. 

Nor  did  Jesus  believe  in  the  necessity  of  suflFer- 
[42] 


ing  and  sacrifice,  simply  as  a  philosophical 
formula,  a  mere  matter  of  deduction  from  the 
fundamental  nature  of  the  expression  of  love, 
much  less  as  a  necessary  theory  concerning 
any  form  of  atonement.  He  believed  that  he 
must  suffer.  He  believed  that  the  love  of  the 
Father  whom  he  would  joyfully  serve  must  be 
expressed  to  the  brother  whom  he  would  gladly 
save  by  his  sacrifice. 

To  be  like  Christ  the  Christian  must  believe 
as  Christ  believed.  Merely  to  believe  in  the 
Father  of  love  with  his  intellect  will  not  help 
him  to  be  Christlike.  God  must  be  his  Father, 
and  this  filial  relationship  he  must  gladly  ac- 
cept. He,  too,  must  believe  that  he  must  work 
the  works  of  Him  that  sent  him. 

The  Christian  cannot  believe  in  the  univer- 
sal brotherhood  of  man  as  a  mere  matter  of 
theory.  He  must  believe  that  the  man  in  need 
who  happens  to  be  nearest  him  is  his  brother, 
and  this  fraternal  relationship  he  must  joyfully 
acknowledge.  He  must  believe  that  he,  too, 
must  save  his  brother. 

Nor  can  he  be  a  true  Christian  by  believing 
[43] 


W^at  ij3  €js^enttal 


only  in  the  necessity  of  someone  else's  sacrifice. 
It  will  not  vitally  help  him  to  be  a  Christian 
to  believe  that  Christ  sacrificed  for  him.  He 
must  believe  that  he  must  sacrifice  for  others. 
He,  too,  must  be  fully  convinced  that  his  filial 
duty  to  God  and  his  fraternal  relations  vsrith 
men  demand  that  he  "must  suffer  many 
things,"  and  it  must  be  his  ideal  to  be  so  filled 
with  the  Christlike  love  that  he  can  accept  the 
suffering  with  joy  unspeakable. 
The  essential  creed  of  the  Christian  is  brief 
and  simple,  but  it  is  personal  and  compelling. 
Let  us  think  of  it  soberly.  Let  us  not  only 
believe  it  with  our  minds;  let  us  accept  it  with 
our  wills.    Here  it  is. 

THE   ESSENTIAL   CREED   OF  THE   CHRISTIAN 

Article    1.  I   believe   that   God   is   my  Father 

whom  I  must  serve. 

Article  2.  I  believe  that  man   is  my  brother 

whom  I  must  save. 

Article    3.  I    believe   that    I    must   serve    my 

Father  and  save  my  brother  by  the  sacrifice 

of  love. 

[44] 


W\)at  i^  t^t  €mntial  CreeD 

All  of  which  the  Christian  may  express  in 
terms  of  his  relationship  to  Christ,  remember- 
ing that  in  himself  as  in  Jesus,  the  compulsions 
of  his  belief  are  the  sweet,  joyful  compulsions 
of  filial,  fraternal,  unselfish  love: 
/  believe  that  the  truths  which  were  actuating 
convictions  in  Christ  must  move  me  to  follow 
his  example. 


[45] 


CHAPTER  THIRD 


Cjcpcrience? 


Sec.  1 .   The  Need  of  Personal  Experience 

HE  modern  demand  for  a  prac- 
tical Christianity  has  popu- 
larly been  supposed  to  have 
deprecatory  reference  not  only 
to  the  creeds  of  churches,  but 
to  the  personal  religious  expe- 
riences of  Christians.  Such  terms  as  repent- 
ance, conversion,  consecration,  and  communion 
have  of  late  been  treated  lightly  as  the  relics 
of  a  Christianity  long  since  outgrown;  and 
such  terms  as  benevolence,  charity,  and  social 
service  have  been  supposed  to  supplant  them. 
We  remarked  in  our  last  chapter  that  a  prev- 
alent impatience  with  meaningless  and  unes- 
sential theological  formulas  was  a  sure  sign  of 
the  beginning  of  a  new  era  of  Christian  ac- 
tivity. Now  we  must  observe  that  an  era  of 
[47] 


W\)at  i^  (B^^mtM 


Christian  philanthropy  must  inevitably  be 
marked  by  a  depreciation  of  personal  experi- 
ences. Philanthropy  is  a  word  whose  signifi- 
cance is  wholly  social.  Repentance  and  con- 
version are  words  whose  significance  is  wholly 
personal.  We  may  go  still  farther.  Essential 
Christianity  as  we  have  tried  to  define  it  is 
simply  Christlikeness,  and  Christlikeness  in  its 
essential  method  of  expression  is  simply  and 
solely  the  ministry  of  unselfishness.  But  un- 
selfishness, too,  is  a  word  which  has  no  mean- 
ing apart  from  its  social  application,  while  re- 
pentance and  conversion  are  words  which  have 
no  meaning  apart  from  their  personal  applica- 
tion. 

These  observations  lead  us  logically  to  the 
following  conclusion.  Personal  religious  ex- 
perience cannot  be  considered  as  the  end  of 
the  Christian  life.  The  end  of  the  Christian 
life  is  social  service. 

But  this  conclusion  by  no  means  denies  the 
necessity  of  the  personal  experience.  The 
social  service  of  the  Christian  is  indeed  some- 
thing that  must  be  intensely  unselfish  in  its 
[48] 


W\)at  10  ti^e  (B^mxtial  Cjcperience 

motive  and  social  in  its  operation.  Christian 
philanthropy  must  always  have  more  refer- 
ence to  other  men  than  it  has  to  self.  Yet 
though  service  has  a  social  object,  to  be  really 
Christian  it  must  have  a  personal  subject. 
We  give  to  others.  We  give  of  ourselves. 
If  Christian  charity  were  only  the  cold-blooded 
bestowal  of  the  coin  upon  the  beggar,  the 
personal  experience  of  the  benefactor  would  be 
immaterial.  The  coin  will  purchase  as  much 
of  the  needed  food  and  clothing,  whether  it 
be  bestowed  by  a  character  the  most  sainted 
or  the  most  sordid.  Indeed  the  purchasing 
power  of  the  coin  would  be  the  same  even 
though  it  should  be  turned  out  into  the  hand 
of  the  beggar  by  the  operation  of  an  insensate 
machine.  Much  of  our  charity  may  perhaps 
be  characterized  as  machine-like.  But  such 
charity  is  not  of  the  essence  of  Christianity. 
In  essential  Christianity  one  cannot  separate 
the  gift  from  the  giver.  To  be  truly  Christ- 
like is  to  give  one's  self.  True  Christian 
charity,  then,  has  its  personal  as  well  as  its 
social  significance.  Hence  the  personal  char- 
[491 


W\)at  ti8  e^^mtial 


acter  of  the  Christian  is  of  utmost  importance, 
even  though  the  object  of  his  Christianity  be 
social  and  not  personal  at  all.  Because  his 
personal  character  is  of  importance,  the  per- 
sonal experiences  which  have  helped  to  form  the 
character  become  of  fundamental  interest. 
We  must  here  be  careful  to  give  a  compre- 
hensive significance  to  the  term  experience. 
Personal  experience  is  simply  personal  history. 
All  the  hopes  and  aspirations,  the  achieve- 
ments and  the  disappointments  which  have 
made  the  man  what  he  is,  constitute  his  experi- 
ence. All  the  hopes  and  aspirations,  all  the 
struggles  and  the  failures  which  have  made 
him  religiously  what  he  is,  constitute  his  reli- 
gious experience. 

It  has  too  often  been  customary  to  limit  reli- 
gious experiences  to  certain  crises  in  personal 
history.  Such  limitation  we  must  carefully 
avoid.  Certain  crises  may  mark  certain  stages 
of  development,  but  the  development  may  be 
a  reality  even  though  the  crises  be  not  apparent. 
The  history  of  the  development  of  personal 
Christian  character  should  be  marked  off  into 
[50] 


W^at  ijeJ  ti)t  €^mitial  txpnimtt 

epochs  only  for  the  sake  of  convenience.  Names 
should  be  given  to  the  description  of  those 
epochs  only  with  the  utmost  caution,  and  with 
the  frankest  confession  of  their  inadequacy. 
Since  no  two  persons  were  ever  exactly  alike, 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  no  two  ever  had  precisely 
the  same  personal  experiences.  In  religion 
as  VvcU  as  in  all  other  phases  of  human  living, 
we  shall  always  have  variety  of  experience. 
But  the  variety  will  be  in  details  rather  than  in 
fundamentals.  The  differences  will  be  in  the 
degree  in  which  men  become  conscious  of  the 
experiences,  rather  than  in  a  real  difference 
in  the  experiences  themselves.  Certain  in- 
evitable characteristics  will  always  mark  the 
personal  development  of  him  who  becomes 
really  Christlike,  for  certain  fundamental  char- 
acteristics are  observable  in  the  personal  de- 
velopment of  the  Christ,  whom  the  Christian 
must  follow. 

Sec.  2.  A  Prevalent  Misapprehension 

Before  we  turn  to  a  consideration  of  Christ's 
personal  experiences  and  their  relation  to  the 

[51] 


I^l^at  ijs  &^tntiai 


necessary  experiences  of  the  Christian,  we 
must  pause  for  a  moment  to  clear  from  our 
proposed  pathway  the  rubbish  of  a  grave  mis- 
apprehension. 

It  has  been  too  much  the  habit  of  certain 
Christian  teachers  and  preachers  to  relate  the 
personal  experiences  of  Christians  to  their  hope 
of  personal  salvation  into  heaven.  The  plea 
for  personal  salvation  has  been  based  upon  the 
threatened  eternal  punishment  of  continued  sin. 
The  acceptance  of  Christ's  sacrifice  has  been 
urged  as  the  means  of  deliverance.  The  sum- 
mum  bonum  of  Christian  desire  has  been  pre- 
sented as  the  assurance  of  the  possession  of 
a  "mansion  in  the  sky."  With  this  personal 
salvation  into  heaven  as  the  one  desired  end 
of  the  Christian  profession,  the  corresponding 
experiences  of  the  Christian,  commonly  ac- 
cepted as  such,  have  been  these: — (1)  A  griev- 
ous consciousness  of  the  guilt  of  sin;  (2)  an 
exultant  consciousness  of  the  removal  of  the 
guilt  by  the  "blood  of  Jesus";  and,  (3)  a  peace- 
ful, not  to  say  prideful,  consciousness  of  the 
assurance  of  eternal  bliss. 
[52] 


I^l^at  ijs  tl^e  CjSisential  (^jtrperience 

All  these  experiences  are  based  upon  the  most 
childish  and  most  selfish  conception  of  the 
Christian  religion.  When  such  experiences 
as  these  are  demanded  of  the  Christian,  and 
only  such,  the  implication  is  that  the  religion 
of  Jesus  has  no  significance  except  as  it  relates 
to  one's  own  individual  and  selfish  welfare. 
Inasmuch  as  the  Christian  religion  is  more 
than  a  manner  of  the  deliverance  of  the  in- 
dividual soul  from  eternal  punishment,  in  so 
much  more  must  the  experiences  of  the  Chris- 
tian have  other  than  this  ultra-selfish  applica- 
tion. 

Not  all  people  are  alike  introspective.  It  may 
be  that  there  are  some  people  too  busy  trying 
to  help  their  unfortunate  neighbors  to  give 
much  thought  to  their  own  unfortunate  selves. 
It  may  be  that  there  are  those  who  are  more 
burdened  for  the  sins  of  others  than  for  their 
own  sins.  It  is  possible  that  there  are  some 
who  are  more  anxious  to  secure  for  others 
decent  dwelling  places  upon  the  earth  than  to 
secure  for  themselves  the  mansions  of  heaven. 
Now,  these  people  who  are  apparently  more 
[53] 


WW  i^  e^^mtial 


interested  in  the  welfare  of  others  than  in  their 
own  welfare  are  no  less  Christian  people  than 
their  more  introspective  neighbors.  Indeed, 
if  Christianity  be  the  philanthropic  service  of 
others,  they  may  truly  be  called  Christians  of 
the  more  mature  type;  and  the  fact  that  so 
many  men  are  to-day  more  interested  in  the 
present  salvation  of  society  than  in  the  fu- 
ture salvation  of  themselves  may  be  taken  as 
a  direct  proof  of  development  towards  the 
religious  ideal  of  Jesus.  For  the  one  object 
of  the  ministry  of  Jesus  was  the  salvation  of 
others.  And  Jesus  taught  the  truth  that  the 
Christian  world  has  not  yet  entirely  learned — 
that  no  man  should  think  first  of  saving  his 
own  life,  but  that  his  own  salvation  would 
result  from  his  service  of  others. 
We  must  frankly  admit,  then,  that  those  reli- 
gious experiences  which  arise  from  the  intro- 
spective habit  of  mind  are  not  the  essential 
Christian  experiences.  They  may  be  real  ex- 
periences to  some;  they  cannot  be  demanded 
of  all.  But  when  we  make  this  admission  we 
do  not  at  all  do  away  with  the  necessity  of  the 
[54] 


W\)at  tjs  tlje  (B^^mtial  ci^jcperience 

personal  religious  experience.  We  must  still 
remember  that  the  social  object  of  Christian 
living  always  demands  a  personal  subject. 
Social  helpfulness  is  the  result  of  personal 
experience  just  as  truly  as  is  personal  piety. 
To  do  good  is  as  much  a  personal  acquirement 
as  to  be  good.  The  mode  of  the  personal 
Christian  experience  will  change  as  the  object 
of  the  Christian  life  develops  from  the  crude, 
selfish  conception  of  individual  salvation  into 
the  more  mature  and  unselfish  conception  of 
social  service.  The  mode  of  the  experience  will 
change,  but  the  intensive  personality  of  the  ex- 
perience will  remain  the  same. 
In  this  more  mature  conception  there  may  be 
little  of  the  consciousness  of  personal  guilt 
for  one's  own  sins,  but  there  must  be  much 
of  the  consciousness  of  personal  responsibility 
for  the  sins  of  others.  There  may  be  no  exult- 
ant consciousness  of  the  salvation  of  one's 
self  by  the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  but  there  should 
be  an  equally  exultant  consciousness  of  the 
joy  of  serving  someone  else  by  one's  own  sac- 
rifice. There  may,  indeed,  be  no  evidence  at 
[55] 


Wi)at  ijs  Cjsjsential 


all  of  the  peaceful  assurance  of  the  future 
heavenly  mansion  furnished  by  God  for  one's 
self,  but  we  should  expect  the  trustful,  helpful 
assurance  of  clean,  pure,  wholesome  earthly 
habitations  furnished  by  those  who  are  trying 
to  work  together  with  God  for  the  promotion 
of  his  Kingdom  here  and  now. 
The  man  who  has  experienced  within  himself 
a  feeling  of  personal  responsibility  for  others, 
a  personal  satisfaction  in  helping  some  other 
ever  so  little,  and  an  abiding  hope  of  the  even- 
tual establishment  of  the  divine  Kingdom  upon 
the  earth, — that  man  must  be  considered  ac- 
cording to  Christ's  standard  as  really  a  Chris- 
tian as  he  who  experiences  the  corresponding 
emotions  with  reference  to  his  own  eternal  wel- 
fare. If  the  latter  man  experiences  only  those 
emotions  which  have  their  intensely  selfish 
causation,  the  former  must  be  considered  the 
more  mature  and,  therefore,  the  more  Christ- 
like Christian. 

We  must  free  our  minds,  then,  from  the  mis- 
apprehension  that  the  essential  personal  ex- 
periences of  the  Christian  must  arise  either 
[56] 


Wl^at  fe  t])z  dmntial  txvttimct 

from  any  conception  of  one's  own  personal 
lost  condition  apart  from  Christ  or  from  any 
desire  for  one's  own  personal  salvation  through 
Christ.  True  Christian  experiences  of  a  lower 
order  may  in  some  instances  arise  from  these 
lower  conceptions  and  desires;  but  the  vital 
Christian  experience  arises  from  the  concep- 
tion of  the  lost  condition  of  other  men  and 
from  the  desire  to  render  to  these  a  Christlike 
service. 

Sec.  3.   The  Religious  Experience  of  Jesus 

We  are  ready  now  to  try  to  understand  the  re- 
ligious experiences  of  Jesus,  our  Master,  and 
our  one  Example.  Unfortunately  very  httle 
attention  has  ever  been  given  to  the  study  of 
the  religious  experience  of  Christ  in  its  relation 
to  the  essential  religious  experience  of  Chris- 
tians. The  Church  has  always  insisted  upon 
the  necessity  of  the  religious  experience  of  the 
professed  follower  of  Christ,  but  it  has  never 
based  that  necessity  upon  the  recorded  experi- 
ence of  Christ  himself.  Indeed,  the  Church  has 
in  general  considered  Christ's  personality  so 
[57] 


W^at  i^  &^mtial 


unique  as  to  separate  him  from  all  possible 
experiences  of  anyone  else.  Preachers  have 
bidden  their  congregations  with  one  breath  to 
follow  Jesus,  and  with  the  next  breath  they 
have  declared  that  by  his  miraculous  birth  he 
was  lifted  above  humanity  to  a  position  hu- 
manly unattainable.  Evangelists  have  ex- 
horted their  hearers  to  grow  like  Christ,  at 
the  same  time  that  they  have  asserted  that 
Christ's  unique  relation  with  God  has  made 
his  character  unapproachable.  In  short,  the 
Christlikeness  of  the  demanded  Christian  ex- 
perience has  been  made  impossible  by  the  very 
teachings  that  have  required  it. 
To  make  good  this  assertion,  let  us  consider 
a  few  specifications.  The  Church  has  de- 
manded of  Christians  the  experience  of  repent- 
ance. Jesus  did  not  repent.  The  Church  has 
considered  it  essential  that  Christians  must  be 
converted.  There  is  no  record  that  Christ 
was  converted.  Some  Christian  teachers  have 
taught  the  necessity  of  a  revolutionary  crisis 
after  conversion,  called  the  conscious  experience 
of  sanctification  or  the  Baptism  of  the  Holy 
[58] 


1^]^at  ij3  tt^t  (B^^mtial  txpniznct 

Ghost.  The  hfe  of  Jesus  witnesses  no  such 
revolutionary  crisis.  The  Church  has  preached 
John  the  Baptist's  message  of  repentance;  it 
has  upheld  the  Saul  of  Tarsus  type  of  conver- 
sion; it  has  magnified  the  Pentecostal  experi- 
ence of  the  disciples.  The  Christian  teachers 
of  the  centuries  past  have  asserted  that  the 
essential  characteristic  of  the  Christian's  ex- 
perience shall  be  revolutionary,  while  the  expe- 
rience of  Jesus  was  evolutionary.  Jesus,  as  the 
narrative  distinctly  states,  "grew  in  favor  with 
God."  (Luke  2: 52.)  But  since  Paul's  time  we 
have  been  told  that  the  follower  of  Jesus  can 
be  saved  only  "  by  the  grace  of  God."  (Vide 
Eph.  2:5.) 

It  is  this  phrase  "grew  in  favor,"  or,  as  the 
Greek  words  may  be  more  correctly  translated, 
"grew  in  grace,"  which  furnishes  us  with  the 
key  to  the  religious  experience  of  Jesus. 
The  phrase  in  the  first  place  necessitates  our 
belief  in  the  initial  immaturity  of  the  character 
of  Jesus,  for  were  his  character  perfect  from 
his  birth  there  could  have  been  no  growth. 
However  we  may  interpret  Christ  theologically, 
[59] 


3^]^at  i^  e^^mtial 


the  historic  person  of  Jesus  began  his  Hfe  in 
spiritual  immaturity,  just  as  he  began  his  hfe 
in  physical  immaturity.  We  can  no  more 
think  of  his  soul  as  fully  equipped  at  birth  for 
the  complete  expression  of  God's  love  than 
we  can  think  of  the  infant  body  in  the  Bethle- 
hem manger  as  fully  equipped  to  bear  the 
suffering  of  Calvary.  Jesus  began  with  im- 
maturity. 

But  this  immaturity  of  soul  must  be  distin- 
guished from  spiritual  blemish.  We  are  no 
more  compelled  to  believe  that  spiritual  incom- 
pleteness is  sinfulness  than  we  are  to  believe 
that  physical  incompleteness  is  synonymous 
with  some  malformation  of  the  body.  Imma- 
turity is  an  incompleteness  which  needs  only 
development.  It  is  something  which  can  be 
overcome  by  growth. 

The  process  of  the  development  of  the  soul  of 
Jesus  was  a  process  which  can  be  conveniently 
divided  into  epochs,  though  no  notably  ap- 
parent crises  mark  the  limits  of  those  epochs. 
1.  The  first  epoch  of  Christ's  personal  reli- 
gious history  seems  to  run  quite  parallel  with 
[60] 


Wi^at  i^  t\)t  (Bmntial  Cjcperience 

that  period  of  physical  development  which 
ends  at  adolescence.  We  cannot  be  sure  that 
Jesus  at  the  beginning  of  adolescence  became 
conscious  of  any  clearly  defined  religious 
emotion.  Our  record  of  this  time  of  his  life 
is  lamentably  meager.  Only  one  glimpse  do 
we  get  of  him  at  this  stage  of  his  development, 
and  that  is  contained  in  a  portion  of  the  Gospel 
of  Luke,  whose  authenticity  has  been  called  in 
question.  Jesus,  according  to  this  narrative, 
went  with  his  parents  to  the  temple  at  Jerusa- 
lem. He  was  then  twelve  years  of  age.  When 
his  parents  started  to  return  from  their  act  of 
customary  Jewish  worship,  Jesus  lingered 
behind.  After  some  search  they  found  him 
discussing  religious  matters  with  the  religious 
leaders  of  his  day,  and  he  silenced  his  parents' 
natural  complaint  at  his  conduct  by  asking  if 
they  did  not  know  that  "he  must  be  about 
his  Father's  business." 

These  words,  reported  to  have  been  spoken  by 
the  boy  Jesus,  offer  no  conclusive  proof  of  the 
personal  experience  through  which  he  was  pass- 
ing, but  the  suggestion  of  the  words  is  illumina- 
[Gl] 


WW  i^  €^^tntial 


ting.  Indeed,  if  Jesus  never  said  these  exact 
words  at  all,  we  know  from  the  expressed  con- 
viction of  his  later  life  (Vide  John  9:4)  that 
he  must  previously  have  passed  through  a  re- 
ligious experience  which  these  words  quite  ac- 
curately describe.  At  what  may  have  been  an 
epochal  stage  in  his  physical  development  he 
entered  upon  a  new  epoch  in  his  religious  his- 
tory. It  was  the  epoch  of  the  consciousness  of 
God  the  Father.  It  was  the  glad  welcoming 
into  his  life  of  the  compulsion  of  his  obligation 
to  the  Father. 

2.  Our  narratives  give  us  no  further  glimpse 
of  Christ's  growth  in  grace  until  we  come  to 
the  baptism  in  the  Jordan,  which  marked  the 
beginning  of  his  public  ministry.  We  cannot, 
therefore,  trace  the  process  by  which  the  early 
acceptance  of  his  duty  to  his  Father  evolved 
the  consciousness  of  the  necessity  of  his  own 
personal  ministry.  But  we  can  witness  the 
act  which  expressed  his  acceptance  of  the 
ministry.  The  baptism  was  his  act  of  conse- 
cration to  the  service  of  others.  Earlier  in  life 
he  had  accepted  his  filial  obligation  to  God. 
[62] 


Now  in  the  Jordan  he  avows  his  acceptance 
of  the  consequent  obligation  to  his  fellow  men. 
The  epoch  in  his  religious  history  whose  out- 
ward sign  was  expressed  by  his  baptism  was 
the  epoch  of  the  consciousness  of  the  needs  of 
men.  It  was  the  acceptance  into  his  life  of  the 
compulsion  of  service. 

3.  The  record  of  the  ministry  of  Jesus  begins 
with  the  account  of  the  temptation  in  the 
wilderness  and  ends  with  the  institution  of 
the  Lord's  Supper  in  the  upper  room  at  Jeru- 
salem. In  other  words,  it  begins  with  the 
allurements  of  a  costless  ministry  and  ends 
with  the  sublime  symbolism  of  the  true  minis- 
try's cost  in  sacrifice.  From  the  temptations, 
though  they  are  allegorically  reported,  we  are 
to  learn  not  only  that  he  was  "in  all  points 
tempted  like  as  we  are,"  but  also  that  he  was 
tempted  exactly  as  we  are,  to  choose  the  less 
costly  method  of  service.  From  the  institution 
of  the  Lord's  Supper  we  are  to  learn  not  only 
that  Jesus  would  have  his  disciples  remem- 
ber the  sufferings  of  his  service,  but  also  that 
he  would  have  them  learn  what  he  himself 
[63] 


Wi^at  (js  cBjSjscnttal 


had  learned— that  all  service  must  cost  suffer- 
ing. 

Along  all  the  hard  road  which  led  from  the 
real  temptation  of  Jesus  to  his  real  acceptance 
of  the  way  of  sacrijfice,  we  cannot  follow.  We 
know  not  just  when  he  became  conscious  in 
himself  of  complete  victory  over  the  tempta- 
tion. We  cannot  tell  just  when  he  accepted 
in  his  consciousness  the  truth  which  he  tried 
to  impart  to  his  disciples  when  he  began  to 
teach  them  "that  he  must  suffer  many  things." 
But  we  need  not  know  the  precise  moment  when 
there  came  to  him  this  new  self-consciousness. 
All  we  need  to  understand  is  that  the  conscious- 
ness did  come  to  him.  Some  time  after  the 
recorded  temptation  to  evade  suffering,  and 
some  time  before  the  institution  of  the  sacred 
symbol  of  suffering,  Jesus  entered  into  another 
epoch  of  personal  history.  This  last  epoch 
was  the  consciousness  of  the  need  of  sacrifice. 
It  was  the  acceptance  into  his  life  of  the  way 
by  which  he  must  serve  his  Father  and  save 
his  brethren. 

The  Savior's    "growth  in  grace,"   then,    we 
[64] 


W}^at  i^  t^t  d^^mtial  Cjcpetience 

may  with  reasonable  accuracy  mark  off  into 
three  stages  of  development.  They  were,  the 
consciousness  of  the  acceptance  of  his  filial 
relation  to  God,  the  consciousness  of  his 
acceptance  of  his  fraternal  obligations  to  men, 
and  the  consciousness  of  his  acceptance  of  the 
way  of  sacrifice. 

These  three  discernible  stages  in  what  we  may 
call  Christ's  religious  experience  follow  closely, 
as  inevitably  they  must,  the  three  fundamental 
convictions  which  we  called  his  creed.  The 
convictions  would  not  have  been  vital  unless 
they  had  culminated  in  experiences.  The 
experiences  would  not  have  been  real  had 
they  not  developed  from  convictions. 
Let  us  summarize.  Jesus  "grew  in  grace" 
through  the  consciousness  of  the  Fatherhood 
of  God,  the  consciousness  of  the  brotherhood 
of  man,  and  the  consciousness  of  the  necessity 
of  sacrifice.  His  character  was  developed 
through  the  joyful  acceptance  into  his  life  of 
the  obligations  of  these  three  conscious  experi- 
ences which  were  in  turn  the  result  of  his 
inner  convictions.  Because  of  these  experi- 
[65] 


W\iat  fjs  Cjijsential 


ences  he  became  the  one  whom  we  must  fol- 
low, if  we  would  be  really  Christlike. 

Sec.  4.   The  Interference  of  Sin 

In  our  consideration  of  the  religious  experi- 
ences of  Jesus,  we  must  always  stand  amazed 
at  his  utter  unconsciousness  of  the  experience 
of  sin.  Here,  indeed,  have  we  discovered  his 
real  uniqueness.  No  other  person  has  ever 
dared  to  challenge  his  fellows  with  such  fear- 
less words  as  these :  "  Which  of  you  convicteth 
me  of  sin  ?  "  Not  one  besides  him  has  ever  suc- 
cessfully claimed  entire  freedom  from  guilt. 
Yet  Jesus  was  almost  constantly  performing 
acts  which  were  justly  censured  by  his  contem- 
poraries. When  he  ate  with  publicans  and  sin- 
ners, he  was  guilty  of  a  breach  of  ceremonial- 
ism, considered  most  vital  to  the  religion  of  his 
people;  and  one  can  find  no  fault  with  the 
scribes  and  Pharisees  for  their  condemnation  of 
his  conduct.  When  he  healed  the  sick  on  the 
Sabbath,  he  was,  according  to  rabbinical  inter- 
pretation, breaking  a  command  of  Jehovah;  and 
the  severe  criticism  of  the  rabbis  was  inevitable. 
[66] 


I^i^at  i^  ti^e  €^^mtial  Cjcperience 

When  he  justified  his  disciples  for  a  hke  in- 
fringement of  the  Sabbath  law,  in  their  case 
with  no  excuse  of  benevolent  intention,  but 
only  to  satisfy  their  own  hunger,  he  mani- 
fested a  disregard  for  sacred  tradition  which 
was  apparently  without  excuse;  and  the 
consequent  hatred  of  the  upholders  of  those 
traditions  he  must  have  expected. 
Whenever  Jesus  did  anything  which  his 
contemporaries  were  wont  to  characterize  as 
sin,  he  always  explained  away  the  supposed 
sinfulness  of  the  act  by  an  appeal  to  a  higher 
tribunal.  The  law  of  ceremonial  cleanliness 
must  give  place  to  the  law  of  the  service  of  the 
lost.  The  infringement  of  the  literal  interpreta- 
tion of  specific  commands  did  not  matter,  pro- 
vided the  motive  of  the  infringement  was  that 
of  unselfish  benevolence.  Men  were  not  made 
for  laws ;  laws  were  made  for  men.  "  Therefore 
the  Son  of  man  is  Lord  also  of  the  Sabbath." 
It  is  very  significant  that  Jesus  used  the  term 
"Son  of  man"  when  he  thus  announced  his 
superiority  to  the  traditions  of  the  elders. 
From  the  context,  this  use  of  the  phrase  cannot 
[67] 


W}^at  i^  CjSjsential 


logically  be  taken  to  refer  to  any  claim  of 
divineness  which  Jesus  made  for  himself 
alone,  but  solely  to  a  claim  of  ideal  humanness 
which  he  made  for  all  mankind.  It  was  as 
though  he  were  exemplifying  in  himself  the 
truth  that  all  men  are  ideally  greater  than  the 
laws  which  have  been  enacted  for  their  gov- 
ernment, and  that  therefore  no  man  should 
be  judged  by  his  infringement  of  this  or  that 
commandment.  Only  should  he  be  judged  by 
the  selfishness  or  the  unselfishness  of  the  mo- 
tive which  actuated  him. 

Such  reflections  as  these  lead  inevitably  to 
the  following  conclusion: 

Though  Jesus  was  the  only  person  who  ever 
fully  demonstrated  his  independence  of  man- 
made  laws  by  the  constant  manifestation  of 
sinless  motives,  ideally  all  persons  ought,  like 
him,  to  be  above  human  law.  And  again, 
like  him,  they  ought  to  be  emancipated  from 
law  by  participation  in  love.  They  ought  to  be 
superior  to  all  laws  of  human  government,  be- 
cause they  ought  always  to  be  actuated  by  the 
unselfish  motives  of  their  divine  inheritance. 
[68] 


Wi)^t  (js  tl^e  €0jsential  tvpttimct 

When  we  give  to  sinlessness  the  spiritual  sig- 
nificance illustrated  by  Jesus,  that  of  perfect 
inward  obedience  to  the  motive  of  love,  rather 
than  that  of  perfect  outward  obedience  to 
the  laws  of  men,  we  can  claim  for  ideal  hu- 
manity, created  in  God's  image,  nothing  less 
than  Jesus  claimed  for  himself  as  the  Son  of 
man.  When  we  observe  that  no  one  but  Jesus 
has  attained  this  ideal,  we  must  not  therefore 
conclude  that  the  ideal  itself  has  become  im- 
paired. We  must  assume  only  that  individual 
attempts  to  attain  the  ideal  have  failed. 
Sin,  theologically  considered,  has  too  often 
been  supposed  to  lower  the  human  ideal.  It 
has  been  assumed  that  since  one  man  once 
failed  to  be  what  he  ought,  all  other  men  can- 
not expect  to  be  what  they  ought.  Because 
of  the  sin  of  Adam,  theology  has  been  prone 
to  consign  all  men  to  a  state  of  original  sin- 
fulness. But  over  against  this  theological 
conception  of  the  necessary  universality  of 
sin  we  must  put  the  one  example  of  the  sin- 
lessness of  Jesus.  Instead  of  saying  that  be- 
cause one  man  sinned  all  others  must  sin,  we 
[69] 


W}^at  i^  €mmtiv'. 


should  say  that  because  one  man  was  sinless 
all  others  ought  to  be  sinless.  Instead  of 
assuming  that  sin  is  a  necessary  experience  of 
humanity  because  of  Adam,  we  who  are  Chris- 
tians should  deny  its  necessity  because  of 
Christ. 

But  when  we  are  bold  enough  to  make  this 
denial  of  necessary  sin,  we  must  be  careful  to 
understand  just  what  we  mean  by  sin.  Im- 
maturity is  not  sin.  Jesus  was  born  immature. 
An  inherited  tendency  to  wrongdoing  is  not 
sin.  Jesus,  whether  he  was  born  of  one  human 
parent  or  of  two,  must  have  shared  somewhat 
in  the  common  inheritance  of  humanity.  The 
selfish  desire  which  makes  temptation  real  is  not 
sin.  Since  Jesus  v/as  tempted  he  must  have 
felt  a  desire  for  the  selfish  end,  else  had  there 
been  no  reality  to  the  temptation.  Sin  is  the 
conscious,  willful  choice  of  the  selfish.  To  sin  is 
to  yield  to  the  selfish  desire.  To  sin  is  voli- 
tionally  to  follow  the  inherited  tendency  to  evil. 
Mistakes  and  failures  must  ever  be  the  product 
of  immaturity,  but  sin  is  an  act  only  of  the  con- 
scious volition  of  the  mature.  The  necessity  for 
[70] 


B^l^at  i^  tl^e  C^jsential  Cjcpetience 

the  experience  of  such  sin  we  who  beHeve  that 
Christ  was  our  example  must  stoutly  deny,  even 
while  we  sorrowfully  admit  that  the  fact  of  such 
sin  is  present  with  us  all. 

We  must  go  farther  than  this.  We  must  deny 
not  only  the  necessity  of  the  experience  of 
sin,  but  also  the  consequent  necessity  of  those 
religious  experiences  which  assume  necessary 
sin  as  their  condition. 

Obviously,  if  we  deny  that  sin  is  necessary  we 
must  also  deny  the  necessity  of  repentance. 
No  man  needs  to  repent  of  sin  for  which  he 
has  not  been  personally  responsible.  Descent 
from  x\dam  does  not  call  for  repentance,  but 
only  actual  participation  in  conscious  wrong- 
doing. 

Again,  if  we  deny  the  necessary  participation 
in  sin  of  all  humanity,  we  must  deny  that  the 
experience  of  conversion  is  necessary  to  all 
men.  No  man  needs  to  turn  from  sin  unless 
he  himself  has  by  an  act  of  free  will  consciously 
pursued  sin. 

We  must  hold  up  as  the  ideal  of  Christian 

attainment,  then,  not  these  revolutionary  ex- 

[71] 


Wl^at  i^  €^^mtial 


periences  which  presuppose  the  soul's  mal- 
formation, but  only  and  always  those  evolu- 
tionary experiences  of  Jesus  himself,  which 
presuppose  only  immaturity. 
Repentance  and  conversion  will  be  necessary 
Christian  experiences  to  that  man  to  whom 
sin  is  a  conscious  human  experience.  Repent- 
ance is  sorrow  for  the  sin,  and  conversion  is  turn- 
ing away  from  its  pursuit.  But  these  experiences 
are  necessary  only  because  of  the  accident  of 
sin.  They  are  not  necessary  because  of  any 
fundamental  characteristic  of  humanity. 
We  must  be  careful,  indeed,  that  we  do  not 
teach  men  that  they  need  to  sin  in  order  that 
they  may  be  "saved  by  grace."  Jesus  has 
taught  men  that  God  will  be  graciously  for- 
giving, when  they  have  sinned.  But  though 
the  prodigal  son  was  saved  by  grace,  the 
elder  brother  had  the  preferable  commenda- 
tion, "Son,  thou  art  always  with  me."  The 
commended  faithfulness  of  the  elder  brother 
and  not  the  forgiven  profligacy  of  the  younger 
is  the  type  of  the  more  desirable  relationship 
of  men  with  God.  We  must  teach  men  that 
[72] 


I^i^at  i^  ti^e  t^^mtial  (Bxvtmntt 

they  need  not  go  away  from  their  Father's 
home.  We  must  teach  them  so  to  Hve  that 
they  will  need  only  to  "grow  in  grace."  The 
natural  way  for  the  soul  to  come  into  the  experi- 
ence of  Christianity  is  the  way  of  develop- 
ment. Christian  nurture  is  nearer  Christ's 
way  than  Christian  revivals.  Evolution  is 
more  natural  than  revolution.  Sin  is  an 
interference  with  the  natural  order  of  the 
soul's  growth,  and  not  a  necessary  experience 
in  that  growth. 

Sec.  5.  The  Essential  Experiences  of  the 
Christian 
Let  us  now  go  back  to  the  experiences  of  Jesus 
which  we  saw  could  be  appropriately  designated 
as  the  inevitable  consequences  of  the  three  ac- 
tuating convictions  of  his  life,  the  experiences 
of  filial  relationship  with  God,  of  fraternal  re- 
lationship to  men,  and  of  love's  compulsion  to 
sacrifice.  We  have  now  to  inquire  in  just  what 
sense  these  experiences  are  essential  to  the 
Christian  of  to-day.  Must  we  expect  the  Chris- 
tian's experiences  to  be  literally  identical  with 
[73] 


W^at  t0  CjSisenttal 


Christ's?  Shall  we  insist  that  the  Christian 
must  become  conscious  of  all  these  experiences 
each  in  its  turn  ?  And  are  we  to  believe  that 
these  experiences  are  wholly  unrelated  to  any 
of  the  experiences  of  Christians  commonly  ac- 
cepted throughout  all  the  ages  of  historic  Chris- 
tianity ? 

The  answer  to  the  last  question  is  a  decided 
negative.  Far  from  being  unrelated  to  the 
common  experiences  of  professed  Christians, 
the  experiences  of  Christ  are  in  their  funda- 
mental characteristics  identical  with  those  ex- 
periences which  organized  Christianity  has 
uniformly  demanded  of  its  adherents.  The 
answers  to  the  previous  questions  will  be  made 
apparent  if  we  trace  this  identity  somewhat  in 
detail. 

1.  The  New  Birth  is  the  name  which  organized 
Christianity  has  generally  used  to  designate  the 
beginning  of  Christian  experience.  Some  por- 
tions of  the  Christian  Church  insist  that  the  new 
birth  shall  be  accompanied  by  evidences  of  re- 
pentance, and  that  in  its  essence  it  is  a  conver- 
sion from  a  state  of  sinfulness.  Other  parts  of 
[74] 


the  Church  Universal  see  in  the  new  birth  only 
an  evidence  of  the  initial  stage  of  spiritual  de- 
velopment, which  needs  but  confirmation.  But 
all  the  Church  is  practically  united  in  its  in- 
sistence upon  a  necessary  beginning  of  the  spir- 
itual life. 

That  is  all  that  is  essential  in  the  fundamental 
idea  of  the  new  birth.  The  new  birth  is  a  be- 
ginning. Just  as  physical  birth  is  the  begin- 
ning of  physical  life,  so  the  "New  Birth"  is  the 
beginning  of  spiritual  life. 

The  first  consciousness  of  the  new  life  is  in  both 
instances  the  consciousness  of  filial  dependence. 
In  both  instances,  too,  the  fact  of  the  birth 
may  normally  antedate  the  consciousness  of  the 
birth.  All  that  is  necessary  to  the  Christian's 
consciousness  is  that  at  some  time  he  shall  feel 
within  himself  the  impulses  of  a  divine  concep- 
tion. As  Jesus  expressed  it,  he  must  feel  the 
compulsion  to  work  the  works  of  God. 
As  to  how  this  new  feeling  may  have  originated 
he  need  not  question.  The  fact  of  the  new  birth 
is  to  be  inferred  from  its  observed  results,  not 
from  an  understanding  of  the  nature  of  its  in- 
[75] 


^l^at  i^  CjSjsenttal 


ception.  Just  as  we  know  a  child  has  been  born 
of  human  parents  when  we  witness  its  Hfe,  so 
we  know  a  soul  has  been  born  of  God  when  we 
witness  its  love.  Like  Nicodemus,  the  Christian 
Church  has  sometimes  asked  how  these  things 
could  be.  But  it  is  absolutely  impertinent  to 
meet  the  manifestations  of  life  itself  with  a  spec- 
ulative inquiry  concerning  the  origin  of  life. 
The  essential  characteristic  of  the  new  birth  is 
not  conditioned  by  the  experience  of  sin.  It  is 
just  the  beginning  of  a  new  and  natural  phase 
of  human  development.  We  can  properly  say 
that  a  child  has  been  born  intellectually  when 
first  he  becomes  conscious  of  a  thirst  for  knowl- 
edge, or  we  can  say  that  a  man  has  been  born 
morally  when  he  first  feels  within  himself  the 
compulsion  of  conscience.  Some  of  these  new 
births  may  be  accompanied  by  observable  signs. 
Some  men  may  be  able  to  say,  "  On  such  and 
such  a  day  I  was  born  intellectually,  or  morally, 
or  religiously."  But  the  knowledge  of  the  exact 
beginning  is  by  no  means  necessary. 
When  a  human  soul  becomes  conscious  of  its 
obligation  to  a  divine  Father,  that  soul  has  been 
[76] 


W^at  (js  ti^e  cBjSisential  Cjcperience 

born.  The  time  and  the  place  and  the  circum- 
stances of  his  birth  are  immaterial.  He  is  a 
child  of  God. 

2.  Baptism  is  the  universally  accepted  method 
by  which  professed  Christians  for  nearly  twenty 
centuries  have  expressed  their  consecration  to 
the  service  of  mankind.  It  is  unfortunate  that 
this  method  of  consecration  should  have  come 
to  be  considered  only  as  a  sacrament  of  the 
Church.  It  cannot  properly  be  considered  as 
such,  for  baptism  antedates  by  many  years  the 
organization  of  the  Church.  Moreover,  bap- 
tism as  embraced  by  Jesus  himself  was  not  ex- 
pressive of  his  admission  to  any  formally  or- 
ganized body  of  believers ;  it  was  expressive  only 
of  his  purpose  to  serve  men.  Baptism,  then,  if 
it  really  means  anything  to  the  Christian,  means 
the  expression  of  his  experience  of  consecra- 
tion. 

The  form  of  the  expression  does  not  matter. 
Jesus  was  probably  immersed.  But  when  any 
body  of  Christians  have  substituted  sprinkling 
for  immersion,  they  have  thereby  practically 
denied  the  necessity  for  the  preservation  of  the 
[77] 


W}^at  i^  ^jsjsential 


particular  form  used  by  Jesus  himself.  And 
when  we  once  admit  that  the  particular  form 
of  the  consecration  of  Jesus  in  any  of  its  details 
does  not  bind  his  followers,  we  have  virtually 
admitted  the  immateriality  of  any  form  of  ex- 
pression. In  this  matter  as  in  all  others,  the 
Christian  is  not  called  upon  to  do  precisely  the 
thing  which  Jesus  did  in  precisely  the  same  way. 
He  is  to  be  actuated  by  the  spirit  of  Jesus. 
The  Christian,  then,  may  express  his  acknowl- 
edgment of  the  purpose  to  serve  others  in  any 
form  of  consecration  that  may  seem  to  him  best 
adapted  to  his  needs.  He  may  be  immersed. 
He  may  be  sprinkled.  He  may  find  none  of  the 
accepted  forms  of  baptism  suitable  either  to  his 
needs  or  to  his  conditions.  But  in  some  way  he, 
to  be  like  Christ,  must  accept  and  publicly  ex- 
press the  obligation  of  his  fraternal  service. 
Whether  he  submit  to  any  church  ordinance  of 
baptism  is  immaterial,  but  really  to  be  Christ- 
like  he  must  become  openly  consecrated  to 
Christlike  endeavor. 

3.  By  the  Communion  of  the  Lord's  Supper 

Christians  throughout  all  the  ages  of  Christian 

[78] 


Wi)at  i^  tl^e  &^mt\al  €xpztimct 

history  have  been  accustomed  to  express  their 
relation  to  sacrifice,  though  they  have  some- 
times understood  it  to  signify  their  acceptance 
of  Christ's  sacrifice  instead  of  their  obhgation 
to  sacrifice  for  others.  Unfortunately,  the 
Communion  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  like  the 
ordinance  of  baptism,  has  been  appropriated 
by  the  Church  as  a  sacrament.  More  unfor- 
tunate still,  most  branches  of  the  Christian 
Church  have  insisted  that  only  those  can  prop- 
erly commune  who  have  been  conventionally 
inducted  into  church  membership.  There  was 
no  organized  church,  however,  when  Jesus  in- 
stituted the  Lord's  Supper.  Those  who  com- 
muned with  him  at  the  first  table  of  our  Lord 
had  confessed  no  definite  creed  nor  observed 
any  fixed  ecclesiastical  ceremony. 
Another  unfortunate  circumstance  is  that  the 
Church  Universal  is  not  agreed  as  to  the  exact 
significance  of  that  institution  which  they  have 
called  a  sacrament.  A  part  of  the  Church  has 
made  the  Lord's  Supper  to  mean  only  an  act  in 
memory  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  Another  por- 
tion of  the  Church  has  considered  it  to  embody 
[79] 


Wi^at  i^  (B^^mtial 


the  actual  presence  of  the  body  and  blood  of 
him  who  died  that  men  might  live.  Sadly  has 
the  entire  Church  been  prone  to  miss  the  full 
significance  of  the  institution,  as  the  expression 
of  the  communicant's  willingness  to  sacrifice  in 
Christ's  spirit.  But  only  as  such  does  the  com- 
munion of  the  Lord's  Supper  have  vital  signifi- 
cance to  the  true  Christian.  He  may  by  the 
communion  reverently  and  adorably  remember 
the  sacrifice  of  Christ,  but  unless  he  also  ex- 
presses in  the  communion  his  own  acceptance  of 
Christ's  method  of  service,  the  communion  in 
itself  will  have  no  practical  effect  upon  his 
Christian  living.  If  the  communion  is  to  mean 
anything  vital  to  the  Christian,  it  must  mean 
the  expression  of  the  truth  that  like  Jesus,  he 
has  experienced  the  obligation  upon  him  of 
love's  one  way  of  service. 
Let  the  Christian  become  conscious  within  him- 
self of  his  acceptance  of  the  way  of  sacrifice, 
and  he  may  express  this  inner  experience  in  any 
outward  observance  that  may  seem  to  him  to  be 
adequate.  He  may  express  it  in  the  worship  of 
the  Mass.  He  may  express  it  by  receiving  the 
[80] 


W^at  i^  ti^e  dmntial  Cjcpertence 

emblems  of  sacrifice  from  the  hands  of  the 
serving  deacons  or  rectors.  He  may  express  it 
in  the  moment  of  silent  communion  without 
visible  emblems.  Or  he  may  express  it  in  no 
church  ordinance  at  all,  but  only  in  the  secrecy 
of  his  own  heart.  But  however  he  may  choose 
to  express  his  community  with  the  sacrifice  of 
Christ,  let  him  be  sure  that  he  feels  it.  For  he 
cannot  truly  be  a  Christian  unless  with  Christ 
he  has  consciously  accepted  the  obligation  and 
the  privilege  of  sacrificing  service. 
Let  us  briefly  summarize  the  results  of  our  in- 
quiry concerning  the  Christian's  essential  ex- 
periences. They  must  be  in  spirit  like  the  ex- 
periences of  Jesus  himself.  Like  Christ,  the 
Christian  must  become  joyfully  conscious  of  the 
compulsion  of  his  filial  relationship  with  God. 
Like  him,  he  must  consciously  and  voluntarily 
consecrate  himself  to  the  service  of  men.  Like 
him,  he  must  definitely  accept  as  the  principle  of 
his  life  love's  method  of  sacrifice.  If  to  these 
three  essential  experiences  he  must  add  the  ex- 
periences of  repentance  and  of  conversion,  it  is 
not  because  of  anything  that  is  fundamental 
[81] 


Wi^at  tjs  Cjsjsenttal 


to  his  human  nature ;  it  is  because  he  has  chosen 
to  go  contrary  to  his  God-created  nature  into 
ways  of  selfishness  and  of  sin.  Though  we 
must  admit  that  it  will  be  some  time  before  the 
ideal  evolutionary  experiences  of  Jesus  him- 
self will  be  all  that  the  Christian  needs,  we  must 
be  careful  to  remember  that  the  revolutionary 
experiences  are  necessary  only  because  of  the 
interference  of  sin,  and  not  because  they  are  in 
any  ways  involved  in  the  nature  of  the  religion 
of  Jesus.  Men  may  need  to  be  "saved  by 
grace."  They  ought  to  need  only  to  "grow  in 
grace." 

The  essential  Christian  experiences  are  the  ex- 
periences of  Jesus. 


[82] 


CHAPTER  FOURTH 

Eebelatton? 


Sec.  1.  TJie  Bible;  Its  Accepted  Preeminence 


F  an  intelligent  inhabitant  of 
Mars  who  had  never  heard  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  should 
visit  the  earth,  and  should  be- 
gin a  careful  study  of  the  re- 
ligion called  Christian,  he 
would  naturally  conclude  that  the  religion  was 
founded  upon  a  Book  instead  of  upon  a  Life. 
To  this  erroneous  conclusion  he  would  be  led 
by  the  observation  of  many  things. 
In  the  first  place  he  would  observe  that  the 
preachers  of  the  Christian  religion  are  accus- 
tomed to  base  their  homilies  and  exhortations 
upon  passages  taken  from  only  one  Book.  He 
would  observe  that  as  a  rule  these  preachers 
make  no  careful  distinctions  between  the  parts 
of  the  Book,  that  they  reinforce  their  state- 
[83] 


W}^at  i^  €^^mtial 


ments  with  impartiality  by  words  taken  from 
the  Gospels,  or  from  the  Epistles,  from  the 
Book  of  Genesis,  or  from  the  Book  of  Revela- 
tion. What  is  more  pertinent,  he  would  ob- 
serve that  these  preachers  give  reverence  to  the 
utterances  of  certain  Jewish  writers,  who  never 
knew  Christ  at  all,  but  who  lived  centuries  be- 
fore his  day,  and  that  they  give  to  these  pre- 
Christian  writers  more  reverence  than  they  are 
wont  to  accord  to  any  modern  Christian  student 
of  Christ's  life.  In  brief,  this  intelligent  ob- 
server would  find  the  accredited  preachers  of 
the  religion  of  Christ  to  be  Bible  preachers. 
Again,  this  keen  and  interested  student  of  the 
Christian  religion  would  observe  that  in  the 
schools  where  the  Christian  religion  is  taught  to 
children  and  youth  the  only  text-book  in  com- 
mon use  is  the  same  single  Book.  He  would 
find  the  entire  body  of  Christian  youths  de- 
voting much  time  to  the  study  of  Joshua,  and  of 
Samson,  and  of  Elijah,  gravely  and  reverently 
considering  such  incidents  of  unreligious  value 
as  the  tying  of  firebrands  to  the  tails  of  foxes, 
or  as  the  ascent  into  the  clouds  of  a  prophet  in 
[84] 


I^i^at  ijs  ti^e  CjSjsential  Eetielatton 

a  chariot  of  fire.  But  he  would  note  that  this 
body  of  Christian  pupils  gives  little,  if  any  at- 
tention to  the  development  of  the  religion  of 
Christ  after  the  first  century,  that  it  spends 
practically  no  time  at  all  upon  the  discussion  of 
present-day  Christianity,  and  that  it  evidently 
ignores  altogether  the  biographies  of  Christian 
heroes  of  modern  times  as  well  as  the  applica- 
tion of  Christian  principles  to  modern  condi- 
tions. In  short,  he  would  find  the  only  recog- 
nized school  of  the  Christian  religion  to  be  a 
Bible  school. 

Once  more,  our  imaginary  Martian  visitor 
would  discover  that  among  professed  Chris- 
tians the  question  of  the  authority  of  their  re- 
ligion is  apparently  inseparable  from  the  ques- 
tion of  the  authority  of  this  same  all-important 
Book.  He  would  learn  that  no  suggestion  of 
literary  criticism  of  the  Book  has  ever  yet  been 
given  to  the  world  that  has  not  been  supposed 
at  first  to  threaten  the  spiritual  vitality  of  the 
religion.  He  would  discover  that  even  to  this 
day  the  careful  critics  of  the  Bible  are  held  by 
some  to  be  destroyers  of  the  very  religion  of 
[85] 


3^]^at  iss  €^mxtial 


Christ.  In  other  words,  the  questioning  student 
of  our  religion  would  find  that  the  authority  of 
the  religion  seems  inextricably  confused  with 
the  question  of  Biblical  interpretation. 
Who  could  blame  this  Martian,  then,  if  in  view 
of  all  these  observations  he  should  say  that  he 
perceived  that  men  called  themselves  Chris- 
tians because  they  believed  in  a  Book .''  How 
could  we  justly  criticise  him  if  he  failed  alto- 
gether to  discern  that  Christianity  in  its  essence 
is  a  manner  of  Life.''  Nay,  more,  so  long  as 
this  indiscriminating  and  exclusive  authority  is 
given  to  all  of  the  body  of  Jewish  literature 
which  happens  to  be  bound  in  one  volume,  how 
can  we  reasonably  expect  any  real  student  of 
our  religion  to  escape  the  error  of  our  imaginary 
student  ? 

Yet  Jesus  himself  declared  that  he  was  the  Way, 
he  was  the  Truth,  he  was  the  Life.  Most  clearly 
indeed  did  Jesus  evidence  his  own  emancipation 
from  observances  and  ceremonies  commanded 
by  those  books  which  the  followers  of  Jesus 
still  hold  to  be  most  sacred  and  authoritative. 
Most  emphatically  did  Jesus  teach  that  vitally 
[86] 


W\)at  10  ti^e  CjJjscntial  Eebelation 

to  believe  in  him  meant  really  to  have  fellow- 
ship with  his  spirit,  and  that  the  authority  of 
his  religion  could  have  no  recognized  basis  ex- 
cept the  authority  of  him  who  dared  to  affirm, 
"/  say  unto  you." 

Sec.  2.  The  Bible;  Its  Fundamental 
Helpfulness 

Wherein,  then,  shall  we  find  any  need  of  the 
Bible  in  the  life  of  the  Christian  ? 
One  suggested  answer  to  this  pertinent  ques- 
tion is  as  follows:  We,  as  Christians,  need  the 
Bible  because  the  Bible  is  our  only  source 
of  information  concerning  Christ.  Evidently, 
however,  this  answer  is  at  best  only  partial. 
The  direct  information  concerning  Christ 
which  the  Bible  furnishes  is  limited  to  a  very 
few  pages.  We  have  practically  all  of  it  in 
any  one  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels.  Indeed,  not 
the  whole  of  any  of  these  Gospels  would  be 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
obtaining  facts  and  information  concerning 
Christ.  For  much  of  each  of  the  Gospels  is 
occupied  with  the  observations  and  deduc- 
[87] 


Wi^at  (j8  (t^^mtial 


tions  of  the  author,  and  with  other  like  extra- 
neous matter.  Shall  we  say  that  the  chapters 
which  relate  the  bare  facts  of  the  incidents 
of  his  life  and  his  simple  unedited  sayings 
are  all  that  we  need  from  the  Bible  ?  This, 
indeed,  is  a  fundamental  need  of  the  Book, 
but  it  is  not  its  whole  need. 
A  more  comprehensive  answer  to  our  question 
has  been  thus  suggested.  We  need  the  entire 
Bible  because  it  is  the  setting  of  the  jewel  of 
the  actual  Christ  biography.  We  need  the 
Old  Testament  because  it  leads  up  to  Christ, 
and  the  New  Testament  because  it  develops 
from  Christ.  Just  as  no  man's  life  can  be 
thoroughly  understood  apart  from  its  connec- 
tion with  precedent  and  subsequent  events, 
so  we  cannot  hope  to  know  the  historic  Christ 
apart  from  the  history  of  his  people.  This 
also  explains  in  part  why  the  Bible  is  funda- 
mentally helpful  to  the  Christian,  but  not 
even  yet  have  we  found  the  complete  answer 
to  our  query. 

It  is  not  simply  the  historic  Christ  whom  Chris- 
tians need  to  know.     If  the  Christian  be  he 
[88] 


W^at  i^  t)^t  t^^mtial  Eebelation 

who  is  striving  to  be  actuated  by  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  and  not  merely  he  who  seeks  to  imitate 
the  particular  things  which  Christ  did,  then 
the  Christian  needs  to  know  more  than  the 
human  setting  of  the  historic  Jesus.  He  needs 
to  know  the  divine  setting  which  was  the  eternal 
spirit  manifested  in  Jesus.  He  needs  to  know 
not  only  the  one  actual  and  supreme  example 
of  the  suffering  of  eternal  love;  he  needs  to 
know  the  yearning  love  itself  which  was  thus 
exemplified.  To  know  Jesus  Christ  is  not  all 
of  that  "eternal  life"  which  is  but  another 
name  for  the  Christlike  life.  Back  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  this  one  concrete  expression  of  love  in 
Christ  there  must  be,  according  to  the  Savior's 
own  words,  the  knowledge  of  "the  one  true 
God." 

The  Bible  is  a  help  to  the  Christian  in  his 
quest  for  God.  In  it  he  can  study  the  revela- 
tion of  God  historically,  in  the  relation  of  Je- 
hovah to  the  people  of  Israel.  In  the  Bible 
he  can  study  the  revelation  of  God  as  an  evolu- 
tion, from  the  crudest  conception  of  a  jealous, 
partial,  unapproachable  and  unnamable  deity 
[89] 


^]^at  ii8  e^^mtial 


up  to  the  apprehension  of  Him  as  the  loving, 
forgiving  Father  of  all  mankind.  In  the  Bible 
he  can  study  God  inspirationally,  deriving 
from  prophecy  and  from  psalm,  from  history 
and  from  legend,  from  parable  and  from  fact, 
many  uplifting  and  ennobling  thoughts  of  his 
relation  to  "Him  in  whom  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being."  Thus  through  the  Bible 
do  we  come  to  know  something  of  Him  who 
in  essence  is  a  spirit,  and  whose  final  defini- 
tion is  Love.  Thus  can  we  be  helped  to 
know  something  of  Him  whose  spirit  of  love 
Christ  tried  to  show  to  all  the  world.  The 
Life  is  the  fundamental  revelation  of  Love. 
The  Bible  is  the  revelation  of  that  Life's  in- 
spiration. 

Sec.  3.   The  Revelation  in  Christ 

The  life  of  Christ  is  to  the  Christian  the  most 
fundamental  and  vital  revelation  of  God.  But 
when  we  think  of  Christ's  life  as  the  revelation 
of  God,  we  must  be  careful  to  include  all  the 
life, — its  birth,  its  development,  its  ministry, 
its  suffering,  and  its  sacrifice. 
[90] 


To  say  that  Christ  has  revealed  God  only  in 
the  sacrifice  of  Calvary  is  unduly  to  limit  the 
meaning  of  his  life.  The  death  was  only  the 
end  of  the  life  of  revelation  and,  as  has  been 
suggested  in  a  previous  chapter,  the  particular 
manner  of  the  death  was  due  to  the  sinful 
bigotry  of  the  scribes  and  Pharisees  and  to 
the  sinful  cowardice  of  the  Roman  Governor, 
Pilate.  On  the  other  hand,  to  say  that  Christ 
revealed  God  only  because  of  a  supposed 
miracle  connected  with  his  advent  upon  the 
earth  is  unduly  to  limit  the  manifestation  of 
God  to  the  unusual,  the  spectacular,  and  the 
inexplicable.  Those  who  base  their  acceptance 
of  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  only  upon 
some  theory  of  sacrificial  atonement,  or  only 
upon  some  mystery  of  divine  incarnation,  are 
alike  negligent  of  the  whole  meaning  and  value 
of  his  life  to  the  struggling  Christian.  Irre- 
spective of  what  may  seem  to  the  individual 
Christian  to  be  a  reasonable  theological  be- 
lief about  Christ's  relation  to  God,  all  Chris- 
tians may  find  in  him  the  revelation  of  God. 
In  Christ  they  are  not  merely  to  believe  that 
[91] 


^]^at  10  Cjsjsenttal 


God  was  in  the  world,  in  Christ  they  are  really 
to  see  God  in  the  world. 

In  the  birth  at  Bethlehem  they  are  to  see,  not 
the  result  of  a  mystery,  but  the  beginning  of  a 
life  of  reality.  In  the  boy's  obedience  to  his 
Nazarene  parents,  they  are  to  learn  that  the 
way  of  the  development  of  the  life  divine  is  the 
way  of  humble  submission.  In  Christ's  minis- 
try to  the  sick  and  in  his  tenderness  with  the 
sinful  they  are  to  discern  how  God  deals  with 
the  unfortunate  in  body  and  in  soul.  In  the 
suffering  of  Jesus  which  finds  its  best  expres- 
sion in  the  words,  "How  often  would  I  have 
gathered  ye,  and  ye  would  not"  they  are  to 
catch  some  glimpse  of  the  suffering,  bleeding 
heart  of  infinite  Love  rejected.  In  the  blazing 
indignation  of  this  divine  man  of  purity  and 
of  love,  in  his  scathing  denunciation  of  hypoc- 
risy, and  in  his  fearless  cleansing  of  the  syna- 
gogue's corruption,  they  are  to  see  the  reverse 
side  of  the  love  of  the  infinite,  the  inevitable 
wrath  of  that  divine  love  against  all  forms  of 
unrepented  pride  and  greed.  And,  finally,  in  the 
death  on  the  cross  they  are  to  discover  some- 
[92] 


thing  of  the  immensity  of  the  love  that  counts 
no  cost  of  sacrifice  too  much  to  pay  for  the  joy 
of  service  and  of  helpfulness. 
God  was  in  this  life  of  infantile  weakness  and 
of  natural  human  development;  God  was  in 
this  life  of  ministry  to  the  needy  and  of  the 
forgiveness  of  the  sinner;  God  was  in  this  life 
of  righteous  indignation  and  of  purifying  love; 
God  was  in  this  life  of  suffering  love  and  of 
costly  sacrifice.  Whether  we  call  Jesus  the 
Incarnate  Son  of  God,  the  Sacrificial  Atone- 
ment, or  the  Perfect  Man,  the  fact  that  his 
life  revealed  God  remains  unaltered. 
The  Christian  who  has  found  God  in  Christ 
has  found  his  dearest  and  most  vital  revela- 
tion both  of  the  Father's  love  and  of  the 
Father's  will.  Without  this  recognition  of 
God  in  the  life  of  his  espoused  Master  and 
Lord,  the  Christian  is  deprived  of  that  divine 
causality  which  alone  can  make  his  religion 
vital  and  efficient.  To  attempt  to  follow  Jesus 
merely  as  a  good  man  whose  life  reveals  no 
eternal  divine  essence,  is  the  attempt  to  measure 
one's  religious  life  by  a  mere  human  standard; 
[93] 


W}^at  i^  (B^^mtial 


but  the  attempt  to  follow  God  as  revealed 
in  the  life  of  Jesus  connects  the  Christian's 
Christlike  endeavors  with  the  divine  purpose, 
and  makes  the  goal  of  his  religious  aspiration 
nothing  less  than  the  limitless,  eternal  truth 
and  boundless  love  of  God  himself. 

Sec.  4.  The  Revelation  in  Humanity 

Such  a  conception  of  the  revelation  of  God  in 
Christ  as  that  suggested  in  our  last  section 
necessitates  as  its  corollary  the  discernment 
of  His  revelation  of  Himself  in  all  humanity. 
If  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ  depended 
upon  any  theological  conception  of  Christ's 
uniqueness,  we  might  assume  that  no  natural 
man  could  ever  reveal  God.  But  if  we  dis- 
cern in  Christ's  life  of  service  and  of  sacrifice 
a  revelation  of  God  which  is  absolutely  inde- 
pendent of  any  conception  of  his  preexistence 
or  of  his  postexistence,  of  his  miraculous  birth 
or  of  his  sacrificial  death,  then  we  must  admit 
the  truth  that  the  same  God  may  be  revealed 
in  a  similar  way  by  any  human  being.  We 
must  then  recognize  that  God  is  revealed  in 
[94] 


l^i^at  i^  tl^e  tmtntial  MtUlation 

all  acts  of  love  and  of  service  performed  by 
any  of  his  children  anywhere.  We  must  rec- 
ognize in  all  humanity  the  capacity  for  God. 
The  Christian  v/ho  can  thus  discern  in  his 
fellow  men  the  revelation  of  God  does  thereby 
establish  a  basis  for  hopeful  Christian  service 
without  which  his  Christian  life  would  be 
narrow,  one-sided,  and  inefficient.  This  Chris- 
tian sees  in  all  men,  even  the  basest,  the  possi- 
bility of  Godlikeness.  He  touches  the  life  of 
the  individual  sinner  with  the  expectant  hope 
that  the  touch  will  prove  effective  because  of  a 
response  from  the  indwelling  germ  of  divine- 
ness.  He  works  for  the  redemption  of  society, 
inspired  and  emboldened  to  appeal  to  the  moral 
consciousness  of  men  by  the  assurance  that  the 
so-called  "public  conscience"  is  the  evidence  of 
the  indwelling  God.  He  hopes  for  the  ultimate 
victory  of  justice  and  of  purity,  of  honor  and  of 
righteousness,  because  he  sees  God  in  men  and 
he  knows  that  greater  is  He  who  is  within  them 
than  any  power  of  evil  outside  them. 
Again,  the  Christian  who  has  found  the  revela- 
tion of  God  in  humanity  has  discerned  his 
[95] 


W^at  i^  e^^tntial 


own  relation  to  humanity.  To  this  man  the 
human  race  is  not  a  conglomeration  of  unre- 
lated individuals,  but  a  molecule  of  which 
every  individual  is  a  needed  atom.  When  he 
has  seen  God  in  his  fellow  men,  the  Christian 
has  caught  some  glimpse  of  the  meaning  of 
divine  brotherhood.  He  has  made  some  ad- 
vance in  the  perception  of  the  one  divine 
family  whose  Father  is  God  and  whose  ideal 
is  unity  with  God.  Perceiving  the  unity  of 
the  family  of  God,  he  has  conceived  himself 
as  an  essential  part  of  the  divine  family,  an 
entity  in  the  unity,  an  individuality  with  in- 
dividual powers  and  functions, — but  a  needed 
member  with  all  his  fellow  men  in  the  one 
divine  brotherhood. 

The  brotherhood  of  man  is  conditioned  not 
only  by  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  but  by  the 
existence  of  a  divine  parental  likeness  in  every 
human  being.  So  the  Christian,  who  to  be  a 
Christian  must  live  in  brotherly  relations  with 
his  fellows,  must  be  able  to  discern  God's  pres- 
ence in  them  all.  The  nature  of  his  Christian 
service  is  not  to  bring  God  into  men's  lives, 
[96] 


Wl^at  i^  t})t  (Bmntial  MtUlation 

but  to  help  them  in  their  lives  to  manifest  the 
God-Spirit  already  there. 

In  the  life  of  Christ  the  Christian  sees  the 
revelation  of  God  in  that  life's  uninterrupted 
sinlessness  and  in  its  perfect  love.  In  the 
lives  of  other  men  he  sees  the  revelation  of 
God  in  their  occasional  victories  and  benefac- 
tions. In  the  lives  of  all  men  he  sees  the  reve- 
lation of  God  in  their  potential  victory  over 
sin  and  in  their  power  of  righteousness.  Pat- 
terning his  life  after  the  most  perfect  revelation 
he  follows  God  in  Christ,  and  thus  he  helps 
to  bring  men  to  a  realization  of  the  God  in 
themselves. 

Sec.  5.   The  True  Test  of  all  Inspired  Revelation 

In  the  previous  sections  of  this  chapter  we 
have  tried  to  suggest  the  fundamental  help- 
fulness to  the  Christian  of  the  Biblical  revela- 
tion, and  the  vital  way  in  which  he  may  view 
the  revelation  of  God  both  in  Christ  and  in  all 
humanity.  But  we  have  not  yet  exhausted 
all  the  ways  in  which  God  reveals  Himself  to 
men,  nor  could  the  subject  be  treated  exhaust- 
[97] 


W\^at  ijs  e^^mtial 


ively  within  the  limits  of  any  one  volume. 
Here  there  can  be  indicated  only  the  sure  test 
of  all  divine  revelation. 

The  test  of  an  inspired  revelation  of  God  is 
the  measure  of  its  inspiration  of  men.  When 
we  apply  this  test  to  the  Bible,  we  cannot  be- 
lieve either  that  all  portions  of  the  Bible  are 
equally  inspired,  or  that  the  possibilities  of  writ- 
ten revelation  have  been  exhausted  in  canon- 
ical scriptures.  When  we  apply  the  test  to  the 
life  of  Christ,  we  cannot  believe  either  that  all 
acts  of  Christ  reveal  God  with  equal  force  and 
power,  or  that  all  the  possible  living  revela- 
tions of  God  were  exhausted  in  this  one  su- 
preme revelation. 

Let  us  apply  the  test  more  in  detail.  First,  to 
written  revelation.  What  writing  contains  the 
more  inspiring  revelation  of  God, — the  book 
of  Esther  wherein  God  is  not  once  named,  or 
the  book  of  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  wherein 
the  soul  experiences  of  the  aspirant  after  a 
godly  life  are  most  clearly  portrayed  ?  Shall 
we  give  to  the  love  poems  of  the  Song  of  Solo- 
mon a  position  of  sacred  honor  which  we  shall 
[98] 


W^at  10  tl^e  CjSjsential  ISebelation 

deny  to  the  poems  of  John  Milton  ?  Shall  we 
reverence  the  history  of  the  children  of  Israel 
of  a  thousand  years  before  Christ,  and  not 
reverence  the  Christian  history  of  all  the 
children  of  God  of  a  thousand  and  more  years 
after  Christ?  Shall  we  find  an  inspiring  reve- 
lation of  God  in  the  account  of  an  ancient 
people's  ascent  from  slavery,  and  find  no  in- 
spiring revelation  of  the  same  God  in  the  rec- 
ord of  a  modern  people's  advancement  in 
civilization  ?  Shall  we  derive  religious  inspi- 
ration from  the  homilies  and  exhortations  of 
Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  and  deny 
all  inspirational  value  to  the  sermons  of  Spur- 
geon  and  Beecher  and  Brooks  and  Moody? 
Shall  we  attribute  to  the  personal  letter  of 
Paul  addressed  to  his  friend  Philemon  a  vital 
religious  helpfulness  which  we  shall  deny  to 
be  present  in  the  letters  of  a  foreign  missionary 
in  Africa  or  in  India  addressed  to  his  praying 
friends  and  supporters  in  America  ?  Shall  we 
conceive  that  John's  vision  on  the  Isle  of 
Patmos  was  inspired,  and  that  Lowell's 
"  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal"  was  uninspired  ? 
[99] 


^l^at  i^  €mntial 


When  we  ask  ourselves  such  questions  as  these, 
the  truth  confronts  us  that  the  vital  Christian 
revelation  cannot  be  limited  to  the  writings  of 
any  age  or  of  any  people.  The  real  value  of  the 
writing  is  to  be  measured  only  by  the  good  it 
inspires  in  the  reader.  The  test  of  its  inspira- 
tion lies  not  in  its  canonicity,  but  in  its  helpful- 
ness. 

When  we  apply  this  test,  the  measure  of  its  in- 
spiring power,  to  the  living  revelation  in  Christ, 
we  must  ask  such  questions  as  these:  Must  we 
believe  that  Christ's  reported  blasting  of  the 
fig  tree  presents  an  inspiring  revelation  of  God 
just  because  it  was  done  by  Christ  ?  Must  we 
say  that  the  recorded  spectacular  appearance 
of  Jesus  walking  upon  the  water  is  of  as  much 
inspirational  value  to  us  as  the  account  of  his  un- 
selfish prayer  for  his  murderers  ?  Can  we  find 
God  in  the  cures  of  Jesus  whose  method  we  do 
not  yet  understand,  and  fail  to  find  Him  in  the 
more  numerous  but  after  all  more  wonder- 
ful cures  of  modern  physicians  accomplished 
through  the  understanding  of  God's  laws  and 
the  application  of  God's  remedies?  Because 
[100] 


Wi^at  tjS  ti^e  t^^zntial  ISebelation 

the  sacrifice  of  Jesus  seems  to  us  to  manifest 
the  supreme  love  of  God  must  we  therefore 
deny  the  existence  of  any  revelation  of  God's 
love  in  the  redemptive  suffering  of  martyred 
Christians,  of  patriotic  and  heroic  soldiers 
murdered  in  the  cause  of  justice,  or  of  yearn- 
ing, anxious  parents  dying  of  broken  hearts  for 
their  wayward  sons  and  daughters  ? 
Just  to  ask  these  questions  is  to  suggest  their 
answers.  There  is  only  one  healing,  redeem- 
ing power  in  all  the  universe.  It  is  God's 
power.  Wherever  and  by  whomsoever  we  see 
the  process  of  redemption  going  on,  there  we 
know  that  we  see  the  revelation  of  God's 
power.  So  there  is  only  one  kind  of  real  love 
in  the  world.  It  is  God's  kind,  the  kind  that  is 
unselfish  to  the  cost  of  sacrifice.  Wherever  and 
in  whomsoever  we  see  the  sacrifice  of  unselfish- 
ness, there  we  see  the  revelation  of  the  love  that 
is  God's.  The  religious  value  of  the  revealing 
life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  or  of  the  life  of  any 
other  man,  is  to  be  measured  wholly  by  the 
good  influence  of  that  life.  Again,  the  test  of 
its  inspiration  by  God  and  of  its  revelation  of 
[101] 


I^l^at  i.^  emntial 


God,  is  to  be  estimated  by  its  power  to  inspire 
and  help  others. 

It  is  significant  that  Jesus  evidently  found  more 
inspiration  in  contemporary  events  than  in  the 
sacred  writings  of  his  people.  The  texts  of  his 
sermons  were  suggested  by  Nature  more  often 
than  by  the  Law  or  the  Prophets.  His  truths 
were  enforced  by  parables  more  than  by  Bib- 
lical citations.  To  him,  God  was  revealed  in 
the  self-sacrificing  generosity  of  the  widow  with 
her  two  mites  as  well  as  in  the  commandments 
of  Moses, — in  the  beautiful  adornment  of  the 
lilies  of  the  field  as  well  as  in  the  prophecies  of 
Isaiah  and  of  Jeremiah. 

To  know  God  as  Jesus  knew  him  is  the  Chris- 
tian's ideal,  and  whatever  reveals  to  him  God  is 
the  vital  Christian  revelation.  He  may  find  the 
revelation  of  God  in  writings  called  sacred  or 
secular.  He  may  find  the  revelation  in  a  scien- 
tific treatise;  he  may  find  it  in  history  or  in  bi- 
ography ;  he  may  find  it  even  in  some  recorded 
event  of  current  history,  in  some  newspaper 
item  of  the  biography  of  the  living.  He  may 
find  God  in  ancient  poetry  or  in  modern  poetry, 
[102] 


W\iat  ijs  ti^e  tmntial  muiation 

in  psalm  or  in  hymn,  in  prophecy  or  in  sermon. 
He  may  find  Him  revealed  in  the  written  pages 
of  books,  or  in  the  more  beautiful  unwritten 
pages  of  Nature.  But  wherever  or  however  he 
may  find  God,  revealed  in  His  majesty  and 
wisdom  and  beneficence  and  love,  there  has  he 
found  the  very  essence  of  the  Christian  revela- 
tion. 

To  the  Christian,  as  to  Jesus,  the  essential  Chris- 
tian revelation  is  all  that,  and  only  that,  which  to 
him  manifests  God. 


[103] 


CHAPTER  FIFTH 


Sec.  1.  The  Historic  Church 

FTER  the  death  of  Jesus  his 
disciples  fell  into  the  habit 
of  assembling  themselves  to- 
gether for  confession,  for  mu- 
tual encouragement,  and  for 
united  helpfulness.  The  first 
of  such  assemblies  as  recorded  in  the  narrative 
of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  occurred  in  the  upper 
room  at  Jerusalem,  possibly  the  same  room 
wherein  Jesus  in  company  with  his  disciples 
had  celebrated  the  last  Passover. 
The  room  was  hallowed  by  sacred  memories. 
Just  as  many  a  bereaved  heart  has  experienced 
a  sense  of  the  nearness  of  the  departed  in  some 
spot  beloved  for  its  intimate  associations,  so  here 
the  bereaved  disciples  of  Jesus  came  close  to  the 
spiritual  presence  of  him  whom  they  mourned. 
[105] 


W]^at  i^  e^^mtial 


It  was  natural  that  in  this  hallowed  place  the 
disciples  should  receive  new  inspiration  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  the  work  they  were  to  do 
in  the  name  of  Christ,  as  well  as  an  endowment 
of  power  for  the  accomplishment  of  that  work. 
Out  from  this  meeting  place  they  went  to  teach 
and  to  preach,  and  to  make  converts  to  their 
cause.  From  the  meeting  there  thus  developed 
the  beginning  of  the  propaganda  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion. 

By  insensible  degrees,  however,  the  public 
assembly  began  to  assume  new  prerogatives. 
After  a  while  the  Christians  came  together  no 
longer  merely  for  confession,  for  inspiration, 
and  for  power;  they  came  together  for  the  dis- 
cussion of  doctrine  and  for  the  establishment  of 
government.  No  thoughtful  person  will  say 
that  either  was  unnecessary.  The  rapidly  in- 
creasing number  of  Christ's  followers  could 
never  have  become  a  force  in  the  world  without 
organization,  and  no  organization  could  have 
been  efficient  which  did  not  seek  both  to  sat- 
isfy men's  intellects,  and  to  command  their  alle- 
giance. Hence  the  beginning  of  the  Church  as 
[106] 


we  know  it  to-day,  not  simply  an  assembly  of 
Christians,  but  an  organization  of  Christians, 
adhering  to  some  form  of  government  and 
avowing  some  kind  of  doctrine. 
It  was  natural  that  the  doctrine  which  the 
organized  followers  of  Jesus  avowed  should 
become  more  and  more  particularized  as  the 
years  passed  by.  But  as  the  doctrines  became 
attenuated,  there  inevitably  arose  diversities 
of  opinion.  Whereas  all  Christians  could  be 
agreed,  for  instance,  in  the  doctrine  that  Christ 
was  their  Savior,  when  men  began  to  ques- 
tion as  to  how  he  became  their  Savior  there 
followed  necessarily  endless  discussions.  On 
general  truths  men  can  be  generally  united; 
upon  the  specific,  explanatory  details  of  those 
truths,  we  may  expect  that  they  will  always  be 
divided. 

Moreover,  not  only  did  the  doctrines  of  the 
Church  become  particularized,  but  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Church  became  abused.  The  recog- 
nized heads  of  the  Church,  in  theory  successors 
to  Peter  and  to  Christ  himself,  became  in  prac- 
tice too  much  the  seekers  after  their  own  selfish 

r  107 1 


a^i^at  f  j3  CjSjsenttal 


ends.  The  government  of  the  Church  was  used 
for  the  furtherance  of  men's  private  greed,  and 
for  the  usurpation  of  temporal  authority. 
The  great  Protestant  movement  was  in  reality 
a  demand  for  the  restoration  in  the  Church's 
government  of  the  principle  of  Christ's  unself- 
ishness. But  Protestantism  in  turn  came  to 
manifest  a  tendency  to  the  arrogant  assump- 
tion of  authority.  And  in  Protestant  churches 
the  abuse  of  power  has  given  rise  to  new  prot- 
estations, and  new  divisions,  until  one  wonders 
if  the  divisive  process  will  ever  end. 
By  these  two  influences,  the  particularization 
of  doctrine  and  the  abuse  of  the  power  of  gov- 
ernment, it  has  come  to  pass  that  the  Church 
Universal  is  to-day  apparently  universal  in 
little  more  than  its  name.  After  nearly  twenty 
centuries  of  Christian  history  it  has  been  es- 
timated that  there  are  at  present  one  hundred 
and  eighty-six  different  sects  of  Christians. 
They  differ  from  each  other  on  matters  of  doc- 
trine and  of  ritual  and  of  government.  All 
are  avowedly  based  upon  the  authority  of  the 
one  Christ.  But  they  do  not  all  sympathet- 
[108] 


ically  try  to  understand  each  other's  point  of 
view,  while  some  even  refuse  to  recognize  as 
real  Christians  all  those  who  do  not  worship 
with  themselves.  Meanwhile,  the  unchurched 
masses  look  at  the  minutely  divided  Church 
with  amazement,  sometimes  with  amusement. 
And  when  they  see  professed  Christian  men 
and  women  zealous  only  for  the  welfare  of  their 
own  church  and  often  jealous  of  the  prosperity 
of  a  neighboring  church,  they  think,  and  some 
of  them  say,  that  the  professed  religion  of  Jesus 
is  indistinguishable  from  a  narrow  and  bigoted 
ecclesiasticism. 

Sec.  2.   The  Church,  a  Means  to  an  End 

There  is  some  excuse  for  the  unchurched  ob- 
server's mistake  in  confusing  Christianity  with 
ecclesiasticism,  for  indeed  many  church  people 
are  apparently  more  interested  in  the  main- 
tenance of  the  prosperity  of  their  own  particu- 
lar church  than  in  the  promotion  of  Christ's 
universal  kingdom  of  love. 
There  are  church  people,  for  instance,  who 
seem  to  feel  that  they  have  done  their  whole 
[109] 


W^at  tjs  CjJjSenttal 


Christian  duty  if  they  but  pay  money  into  their 
own  church's  treasury.  Some  of  these  people 
give  most  generously  and  liberally.  They  erect 
costly  church  edifices,  which  they  furnish  lux- 
uriously. Their  church  is  richly  carpeted. 
Their  pews  are  deeply  cushioned.  Their  me- 
morial windows  are  most  magnificent.  Their 
organ  is  as  expensive  as  it  is  sonorous.  The 
choir  of  their  church  is  widely  advertised  as  the 
most  liberally  paid  of  any  in  the  city.  Their 
preacher  is  the  most  eloquent  who  can  be  lured 
from  some  smaller  and  more  plebeian  congrega- 
tion by  the  pressing  necessity  of  a  larger  salary. 
And  some  of  the  supporters  of  this  richly  en- 
dowed church  sit  comfortably  in  their  cush- 
ioned pews  of  a  Sunday  morning  in  the  smug 
self-satisfaction  that  they  have  ministered  unto 
the  Lord,  when  really  they  have  but  provided 
themselves  with  the  beautiful  things  that  are 
pleasing  to  their  own  cultured  eyes,  and  with 
the  melodious  sounds  that  are  soothing  to  their 
own  aesthetic  ears.  For  men  to  provide  for 
themselves  a  suitable  place  wherein  to  worship 
God  ought  not  to  be  considered  in  itself  any 
[110] 


more  really  a  Christian  enterprise  than  for  them 
to  provide  for  themselves  a  place  wherein  they 
can  eat  and  sleep,  or  a  place  wherein  they  can 
mingle  with  their  exclusive  friends  in  social 
intercourse  and  amusement. 
Nor  is  this  all.  Many  church  people,  who  would 
scorn  to  think  they  had  done  all  of  their  Chris- 
tian duty  by  giving  money  to  their  own  church, 
seem  to  think  that  they  have  done  all  that  can 
be  required  of  them  by  giving  time  to  the 
church.  To  these  the  end  of  the  Christian  life 
seems  to  be  not  merely  the  maintenance  of  a 
beautiful  church  building,  but  the  maintenance 
of  the  conventional  institutions  of  a  churchly 
activity.  These  go  always  to  the  Sunday  morn- 
ing and  evening  services  of  their  church.  They 
attend  its  midweek  prayer  meeting  or  lecture. 
They  send  their  children  to  Sunday  School  and 
their  young  people  to  its  Christian  Endeavor 
Society.  They  belong  to  its  Men's  Club  or  to 
its  Women's  Sewing  Circle.  They  patronize 
its  socials,  its  entertainments,  and  its  fairs. 
They  expect  their  hired  minister  to  give  all  his 
time  and  energy  to  the  maintenance  of  this 
[111] 


3^]^at  t0  Cjs^enttal 


little  round  of  ecclesiastical  activity,  and  they 
estimate  the  help  their  church  may  be  in  God's 
kingdom  only  by  the  size  of  its  prayer  meeting, 
by  the  attendance  at  its  social  functions,  and 
by  the  increase  of  its  own  membership.  But 
meanwhile,  for  men  to  maintain  an  actively 
flourishing  church  may  not  in  itself  be  any 
more  truly  a  Christlike  activity  than  for  them 
to  maintain  a  flourishing  business  or  a  flourish- 
ing lodge  or  a  flourishing  club. 
The  Church  at  its  very  best  is  only  a  means  to 
an  end,  never  an  end  in  itself.  The  one  end  of 
the  Church's  existence  is  the  promotion  of  the 
religion  of  Jesus. 

If  this  proposition  needed  any  demonstration 
the  history  of  the  foundation  of  the  church 
would  be  sufficient.  The  Church  was  estab- 
lished by  Christians  from  motives  of  expedi- 
ency and  from  the  felt  need  for  fellowship  and 
collective  instruction.  It  was  not  organized 
for  the  promotion  of  its  own  welfare,  but  to  help 
Christians  in  the  promotion  of  their  Christian 
living.  Historically,  the  Church,  like  the  Sab- 
bath, was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Church. 
[112] 


If  Christians  no  longer  need  the  Church  to  help 
them  to  live  Christ's  life,  then  the  Church  has 
no  reason  for  its  continued  existence.  Surely 
no  church  has  the  right  to  demand  the  devo- 
tion and  homage  of  the  Christian  people  of  the 
twentieth  century  just  because  the  Christians 
of  the  first  century  found  it  advisable  and  help- 
ful to  come  together  in  the  public  assembly  for 
worship,  for  instruction,  for  mutual  comfort, 
and  for  fraternal  fellowship.  The  Church  can- 
not be  considered  as  divine  in  its  inception  and 
divine  in  its  continued  existence  apart  from  its 
continued  helpfulness  to  men. 
And  just  as  the  Church  itself  has  no  reason  for 
existence  apart  from  its  usefulness,  so  no  spe- 
cialized activity  of  the  Church  can  be  con- 
sidered necessary  which  has  lost  its  power  of 
helpfulness.  If  the  prayer  meeting  cannot  be 
helpful  to  the  promotion  of  Christian  living 
there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  be  maintained. 
If  the  socials  cannot  minister  to  the  Christian 
welfare  of  men,  they  should  be  abandoned. 
The  Church  and  all  customary  avenues  of  the 
Church's  activity  are  of  use  only  as  they  have 
[113] 


WW  i^  CjSjsential 


in  themselves  the  power  to  inspire  men  and  to 
help  men  to  live  like  Christ.  The  end  of  these 
churchly  activities  is  not  their  own  prosperity 
and  liveliness,  the  end  is  their  service  in  the 
promotion  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 

Sec.  3.  The  Distinctive  Function  of  the  Church 

As  has  been  indicated  in  the  preceding  section, 
it  is  the  one  distinctive  function  of  the  Church 
to  promote  the  Christian  life, — not  only  the 
Christian  life  of  its  own  constituency  but  also 
the  Christian  life  of  the  community  and  of  the 
world. 

To  accomplish  this  one  purpose  of  its  existence, 
the  Church  must  do  more  than  to  furnish  a  form 
of  worship  which  shall  be  pleasing  to  its  own 
members.  It  must  furnish  a  worship  that  shall 
be  vital  and  strengthening.  The  worship  must 
be  nutritious.  It  must  be  in  the  nature  of  spir- 
itual food  which  the  worshipers  can  assimilate 
and  digest,  and  which  shall  strengthen  them 
for  the  toils  and  trials  and  temptations  of  their 
daily  life.  It  is  the  object  of  the  Church  not 
merely  to  bring  its  members  to  worship  God, 
[114] 


but  through  their  worship  to  strengthen  them 
for  the  service  of  men. 

The  Church  must  do  more  than  to  teach  theo- 
logical truths  and  to  expound  Biblical  passages. 
It  must  apply  the  truths  to  the  present  needs, 
not  only  of  the  listening  congregation,  but  of 
society  at  large  to  which  this  one  congregation 
must  minister.  It  must  not,  then,  be  content 
with  teaching  the  truth,  it  must  inspire  right- 
eousness. It  must  send  men  out  of  the  Church, 
not  merely  saying,  "How  true  this  is  which  I 
have  heard  to-day"  but  saying,  "How  impera- 
tive it  is  that  I  should  try  to  do  what  I  have 
heard  this  day."  It  is  not  the  function  of  the 
Church  to  make  men  believe,  but  to  make 
them  do. 

The  Church  must  do  more  than  to  equip  gym- 
nasiums and  maintain  industrial  bureaus.  It 
must  do  more  than  to  establish  evening  schools 
and  to  provide  secular  instruction.  It  must  do 
more  even  than  to  convert  its  assembly  rooms 
into  clinics,  and  to  advertise  to  cure  the  sick 
either  by  faith  or  by  hypnotism,  or  by  the 
vaunted  knowledge  of  the  nothingness  of  matter 
[115] 


W\^at  t0  cEjSjsential 


and  the  allness  of  mind.  All  these  physiolog- 
ical, industrial  and  intellectual  activities  are, 
indeed,  Christian  activities,  but  they  can  best 
be  performed  by  agencies  wholly  divorced  from 
the  Church,  by  those  men  who  are  free  from  all 
possible  charge  of  narrow  denominationalism, 
by  those  who  have  been  specially  trained  for 
these  specific  parts  of  a  truly  Christian  ministry. 
But  the  Church  must  do  more  than  these  inas- 
much as  the  source  and  the  inspiration  of  any 
movement  are  more  than  the  movement  itself. 
The  Church  must  inspire  men  to  do  under  these 
other  Christian  agencies  this  needed  work  of 
ministry  to  others.  It  is  not  the  function  of  the 
Church  to  usurp  the  work  of  its  industrial  and 
social  allies  in  the  promotion  of  God's  Kingdom, 
but  so  to  interpret  the  religion  of  Jesus  and  so 
to  apply  it  to  present  conditions  as  to  inspire 
men  to  work  with  and  through  these  allies  for 
the  betterment  of  mankind. 
The  Church  must  do  more  than  to  purify 
politics,  to  enforce  law,  or  to  cleanse  munici- 
palities. The  Church  cannot  be  a  political 
power,  not  even  a  political  purifying  power. 
[116] 


The  union  of  the  State  with  the  Church  worked 
disastrously  for  both.  The  assumption  by 
the  Church  of  the  functions  of  the  State  must 
always  end  in  disaster.  But  again,  the  Church 
must  do  more  than  this  in  that  the  Church 
must  inculcate  such  a  love  for  purity  and 
righteousness  and  such  a  hatred  for  vice  and 
sin  as  shall  send  men  out  from  the  Church  on 
fire  with  the  righteous  indignation  of  avenging 
angels.  With  the  "  sword  of  the  spirit "  and  with 
the  "  breastplate  of  righteousness,"  the  Church 
must  equip  the  soldiers  of  the  army  of  God 
who,  under  the  flag  of  patriotic  citizenship, 
must  fight  the  manifold  forms  of  evil  in  both 
municipality  and  nation;  aye,  and  who  will 
fight  until  the  victory  of  God  is  won. 
It  follows,  finally,  that  the  Church  must  do 
more  than  to  seek  to  increase  its  roll  of  mem- 
bers. The  end  of  the  Church's  existence  is  not 
to  make  church  members  but  to  make  work- 
ing, helpful  Christians,  Instead  of  being  con- 
tent to  get  men  into  the  Church,  the  Church 
must  be  satisfied  only  when  it  sends  men  out 
from  the  Church  to  serve  other  men. 
[117] 


I^I^at  10  (B^^mtial 


To  interpret  the  religion  of  Jesus  and  to  apply 
that  rehgion  to  present  conditions  and  to  pres- 
ent needs;  to  inspire  men  to  Hve  Christ's  re- 
ligion, to  do  in  the  world  the  work  of  ministry 
to  the  needy  and  of  salvation  to  the  sinful, — 
to  do  the  same  kind  of  work  to-day  which 
Jesus  did  in  the  first  century  in  Judea  and 
Galilee; — this  is  the  one  essential  function  of 
the  Christian  church.  If  it  is  doing  this  work, 
its  denominational  name  is  of  little  interest, 
its  professed  theology  of  little  concern,  its 
accepted  ritual  an  immaterial  matter.  If  it 
is  not  doing  this  work,  no  power  of  Pope  or  of 
Synod,  of  presbytery  or  of  episcopacy,  can 
save  it  from  its  deserved  fate  of  annihilation. 
Observers  differ  as  to  the  real  helpfulness  of 
the  present  Christian  Church.  Some  writers 
are  marshaling  the  statistics  of  church  mem- 
bership and  of  church  attendance,  and  from 
these  they  are  making  the  deduction  that  the 
Church  is  declining  in  power  and  in  influence. 
Such  statistics  are  utterly  worthless,  and  the 
conclusions  drawn  from  them  must  be  con- 
sidered null  and  void;  for  the  value  of  any 
[118] 


church, — its  real  vahie  to  the  Kingdom  of 
God, — is  to  be  measured  not  by  the  size  of  its 
membership  or  of  its  weekly  congregations, 
but  by  the  extent  of  its  influence  in  the  world. 
How  many  men  are  being  inspired  in  the 
Church  and  by  the  Church  to  live  useful  lives, 
to  be  faithful  and  helpful  in  their  homes, 
honest  and  industrious  in  their  business,  clean 
and  patriotic  in  their  citizenship,  kind  and 
patient  in  their  friendship,  thoughtful  and 
generous  in  their  benevolence  ?  These  sta- 
tistics are  not  at  hand.  But  so  long  as  one 
man  has  been  helped  by  the  Church  to  be  a 
better  man,  the  Church  has  justified  its  exist- 
ence. And  the  Church  which  has  helped 
any  can  help  all. 

Sec.  4.   The  Assistance  of  Church  Membership 

Let  us  see  now  more  in  detail  just  what  the 
Christian  needs  from  a  church.  Since  historic- 
ally there  were  Christians  before  there  was  any 
church  at  all,  logically  it  follows  that  there 
may  be  Christians  outside  the  Church.  Chris- 
tians, then,  do  not  need  the  Church  as  a  basis 
[119] 


Wi^at  i^  €mmtial 


of  their  Christianity.  No  man  can  become  a 
Christian  simply  by  joining  a  church,  and  no 
church  can  justly  claim  that  those  not  in  its 
membership  are  therefore  not  Christians.  A 
man  is  a  Christian  first,  because  he  is  trying 
to  be  actuated  by  the  spirit  of  Christ.  He  may 
become  a  church  member  afterwards,  because 
through  the  organization  of  the  Church  he 
believes  he  can  best  confess  his  Christian  pur- 
pose and  assist  in  Christian  activity. 
The  fundamental  assistance  of  church  mem- 
bership to  the  Christian  is  this:  the  Church  in 
its  purity  offers  to  the  individual  Christian 
the  means  of  public  confession;  it  offers,  too, 
the  assistance  of  a  mutual  encouragement, 
and  the  opportunity  for  united  effort.  Since 
no  man  who  is  a  social  being  can  live  any 
phase  of  his  life  alone,  he  cannot  expect  to 
live  his  Christian  life  alone.  If  he  is  really 
Christlike,  he  will  try  to  make  others  more 
Christlike.  If  he  is  soundly  logical,  he  will 
perceive  that  he  can  do  this  best  in  fellow- 
ship with  others  who  are  actuated  by  like 
motives. 

[120] 


But  which  one  of  the  various  churches  shall 
the  Christian  select  as  most  helpful  to  himself  ? 
Unfortunately  he  has  not  perfect  freedom  of 
choice.  The  insistence  of  churches  upon  the 
acceptance  of  a  detailed  theology  has  excluded 
many  an  earnest  Christian  from  their  helpful 
fellowship,  and  the  standard  of  membership 
must  be  modified  before  many  Christian  men 
of  intellectual  candor  can  honestly  unite  with 
the  Church.  No  church  should  demand  as 
its  basis  of  membership  anything  other  than  a 
declaration  of  Christian  purpose  and  an  assent 
to  a  simple  covenant,  promising  personal 
allegiance  to  the  church  and  brotherly  regard 
for  all  its  members.  If  all  churches  should 
agree  in  demanding  this,  and  this  only,  the 
much  desired  day  of  church  unity  would  be 
at  hand.  So  long  as  churches  insist  upon 
particular  interpretations  of  dogma,  so  long 
will  the  day  of  union  be  delayed.  The  Church 
in  its  essence  belongs  rightly  to  all  Christians, 
whatever  may  be  their  different  interpreta- 
tions of  theological  doctrine.  But  we  must 
bring  the  Church  back  to  the  original  purity 
[121] 


WW  tj8  CjSjsential 


of  that  assembly  in  the  upper  room  at  Jerusa- 
lem before  we  can  expect  it  to  be  to  Christians 
all  that  ideally  it  should  be. 
Yet  no  Christian  should  refrain  from  joining 
the  Church  because  he  fancies  some  of  its  mem- 
bers may  be  narrow  bigots.  Among  the  great 
variety  of  churches  offered,  it  would  seem  that 
every  man  ought  to  find  some  one  wherein  he 
can  conscientiously  hope  to  advance  the  King- 
dom of  God  upon  the  earth,  and  through 
whose  organization  he  can  do  Christlike  work 
shoulder  to  shoulder  with  his  fellows.  There 
is  an  avowed  sensitiveness  concerning  church 
creeds  and  dogmas  which  sometimes  amounts 
to  an  excuse  for  the  neglect  of  duty.  Granted 
that  the  churches  of  the  day  need  purification, 
granted  that  the  most  of  them  cling  too  closely 
to  the  traditions  of  men  and  do  not  follow 
closely  enough  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  the  best 
way  to  purify  the  Church  is  not  to  stand  out- 
side to  criticise  but  to  go  in  to  cleanse. 
The  strong,  broad-minded  Christians  who  are 
trying  to  live  their  life  outside  the  Church 
could  do  much  to  make  the  Church  what  it 
[122] 


ought  to  be  if  they  only  would.  The  Church 
needs  them,  and  they  need  the  Church.  The 
Church  needs  the  help  and  the  personal  alle- 
giance of  all  Christians  in  its  efforts  to  Chris- 
tianize the  world.  All  Christians  need  the 
Church  in  their  efforts  to  follow  Christ.  Or- 
ganization gives  power.  Public  confession 
generates  personal  responsibility.  Fellowship 
brings  courage  and  strength.  These  things 
the  Church  can  give  to  the  Christian.  All 
these  the  Christian  needs  if  he  is  really  to  live 
the  Christlike  life. 

Sec.  5.   The  Value  oj  Public  Worship 

When  a  biographer  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
said  of  that  illustrious  author  that  "he  was 
too  broad  to  worship  God  within  the  narrow 
confines  of  any  church  edifice,"  he  did  not 
mean  his  readers  to  infer  that  Mr.  Stevenson 
was  irreligious.  Indeed,  quite  the  contrary. 
The  writer  meant  in  substance  to  assert  that 
to  Mr.  Stevenson  religious  worship  seemed 
something  too  sublime  and  too  divine  to  be 
confined  within  the  doors  of  human  workman- 
[123] 


Wl^at  i^  e^^mtial 


ship,  something  too  personal  and  too  private  to 
be  paraded  in  piibHc,  something  which  in  its 
nature  was  too  exclusively  a  matter  between 
God  and  the  individual  to  be  shared  with  any 
other  human  being.  The  writer  would  have  us 
believe  that  in  order  to  preserve  the  sublimity 
of  his  religion  as  well  as  to  preserve  his  own 
independence,  Mr.  Stevenson  went  "alone  into 
the  woods  to  worship  God,"  and  refused  to 
worship  with  his  fellow  men  in  some  church 
edifice. 

The  genuineness  of  Mr.  Stevenson's  religious 
nature  is  not  here  called  in  question.  There 
may  be  some  natures  who  do  not  feel  the  need 
for  themselves  of  participation  in  any  form  of 
public  worship,  but  no  man  can  live  his  Chris- 
tian life  only  for  himself.  A  genuinely  religious 
man  may  find  all  he  needs  to  receive  from  wor- 
ship in  the  woods  alone  with  God,  but  the 
truly  Christian  man  cannot  expect  to  give  all 
that  he  ought  in  worship  except  in  the  public 
assembly.  The  fundamental  helpfulness  of 
private  worship  is  to  get  from  God.  An  added 
helpfulness  in  public  worship  is  to  give  to  men. 
[124] 


True  worship  has  its  social  as  well  as  its  per- 
sonal value.  It  is,  indeed,  first  of  all  a  matter 
between  the  individual  soul  and  God,  but  just 
because  it  is  that,  it  becomes  therefore  a  matter 
between  the  individual  soul  and  other  souls. 
The  closer  one  comes  to  the  divine  love,  the 
more  will  one's  heart  be  filled  with  human 
love.  If,  indeed,  the  Christian  by  worship 
comes  near  to  God,  he  therefore  by  the  same 
act  comes  nearer  to  all  his  fellows. 
Hence  the  value  of  public  worship,  not  that 
men  should  be  "heard  for  their  much  speak- 
ing," or  reverenced  either  for  their  many 
prayers  or  for  their  pious  genuflections;  but 
that  the  worshipful  heart  of  the  individual 
may  communicate  something  of  its  worshipful 
spirit  to  his  neighbor,  and  that  the  soul  aspir- 
ing to  God  may  help  by  its  own  aspiration  to 
bear  some  other  soul  nearer  to  Him. 
When  a  man  looks  for  the  first  time  at  the 
sublimity  of  the  great  Falls  of  Niagara,  or 
when  he  but  witnesses  an  unusually  glorious 
sunset,  if  he  be  a  man  who  has  known  human 
love,  he  wishes  that  his  loved  one  might  stand 
[125] 


W]^at  tj3  €j3j2Jential 


at  his  side  to  share  with  him  the  inspiration 
of  the  moment.  If  that  loved  one  be  by  his 
side,  then  the  two  sympathetic  souls  are  drawn 
closer  together  by  this  experience  of  their 
mutual  adoration  of  the  sublime. 
So  when  the  soul  looks  upward  to  God,  there 
should  naturally  follow  the  wish  for  human 
companionship.  If  the  friend  be  by  the  side 
of  the  worshiper,  the  two  are  drawn  closer 
together  in  their  human  love  by  this  act  of 
their  aspiration  for  the  divine.  There  may  be 
some  pathetically  lonely  souls  who  prefer  to 
stand  without  human  companionship  in  the 
presence  of  the  manifestations  of  God.  But 
these  are  they  who  know  nothing  of  the  inevi- 
table human  overflow  of  the  true  worship  of 
the  divine. 

One  could  wish  that  Mr.  Stevenson  had  been 
able  to  discern  that  the  public  worshipers  of 
God  were  not  bound  by  the  narrow  walls  of 
the  church  edifice,  but  by  the  natural  ties  of 
similar  aims  and  of  common  purposes.  Had 
he  discerned  this,  he  might  have  been  able  to 
help  others  by  sharing  with  them  his  religious 
[  126  ] 


aspirations,  just  as  he  helped  so  many  by  shar- 
ing with  them  his  hterary  genius. 
To  help  others,  this  is  the  fundamental  aim  of 
the  Christian,  and  he  must  not  lose  sight  of 
this  aim  in  his  worship  of  God  any  more  than 
in  his  more  direct  service  for  men.  The  most 
valuable  assistance  which  the  Church  has  yet 
been  able  to  give  to  the  Christian  has  been 
the  assistance  of  public  worship.  Wherever 
the  element  of  public  worship  has  been  mini- 
mized in  the  Church,  there  the  helpfulness  of 
the  Church  has  been  most  meager.  Should 
this  function  of  the  Church's  activity  conceiv- 
ably be  omitted  altogether,  it  is  as  well  con- 
ceivable that  the  Church  would  soon  cease  to 
exist. 

We  must,  of  course,  leave  the  particular  form 
of  public  worship  to  the  choice  of  the  individual. 
He  will  be  guided  to  his  choice  by  youthful 
training  and  by  present  environment.  He 
may  be  influenced  by  the  limitations  of  oppor- 
tunity, and  by  the  demands  of  expediency. 
Insistence  upon  any  form  should  not  be  a 
matter  of  conscience  to  any  follower  of  him 
[127] 


3^]^at  t0  CjSjsenttal 


who  taught  that  not  "in  this  mountain  nor 
yet  in  Jerusalem"  but  "in  spirit  and  in  truth," 
should  men  worship  the  Father  who  is  a 
Spirit. 

The  Christian  who  is  not  unduly  stiff  or  un- 
sympathetically  prejudiced  ought  to  be  able 
to  worship  not  only  alone  in  the  woods,  but 
also  in  whatever  place  and  in  whatever  way 
he  may  find  his  brethren  honestly  striving  to 
worship  the  Father  of  all  mankind.  When 
thus  he  tries  to  embody  in  form  or  in  ritual 
the  sincere  spirit  of  the  true  worshiper,  he  will 
always  find  help.  He  will  find  help  for  himself 
because  the  act  of  worship  will  bring  him  out 
of  himself  and  into  a  closer  touch  with  the  in- 
finite God.  But,  what  is  of  more  consequence, 
he  will  also  find  the  usefulness  of  his  Christian 
life  increased  by  the  overflow  from  his  act  of 
worship  which  will  touch  with  helpful  sympathy 
and  uplifting  power  the  hearts  of  all  who  wor- 
ship with  him. 

The  essential  Christian  Church  is  the  assembly 

of  all  those  who  in  their  worship  would  seek  to 

help  others  as  well  as  themselves.     It  is  the 

[128] 


organization  of  those  who,  by  the  public  pro- 
fession of  their  Christian  purpose  and  by 
the  mutual  participation  of  their  Christian  serv- 
ice, try  to  minister  to  others  in  the  spirit  of 
Christ. 


[129] 


CHAPTER  SIXTH 


actibitt? 


Sec.  1.  Christianity  and  Personal  Salvation 


FAVORITE  word  often  upon 
the  lips  of  the  Great  Teacher 
of  the  Christian  religion  was 
the  word  "  Watch."  He  bade 
his  hearers  watch,  for  they 
knew  "neither  the  day  nor 
the  hour  wherein  the  Son  of  man  cometh." 
(Matt.  25:  13.)  He  enjoined  the  spirit  of  vigi- 
lance upon  his  disciples,  whose  weary  bodies 
would  not  let  them  watch  with  him  for  one 
hour.  They  were  to  watch,  "that  they  enter 
not  into  temptation."  (Matt.  26 :  41.) 
It  seems  evident  from  these  and  other  similar 
instructions  of  Jesus  that  in  his  mind  vigilance 
was  one  of  the  requisite  modes  of  true  Chris- 
tian activity.  It  was  not  merely  a  vigilance 
imposed  by  the  possible  unexpectedness  of 
[1311 


^l^at  tjs  Cjs^ential 


death,  but  a  vigilance  imposed  by  the  exigencies 
of  life. 

We  are  very  wrong  if  we  think  his  parable  of 
the  ten  virgins  had  reference  only  to  the  com- 
ing of  the  angel  of  death.  The  Bridegroom 
does  not  come  only  to  take  men  out  of  the 
world,  but  also  to  fit  them  to  live  in  the  world. 
Christians  are  not  just  to  watch  that  they  may 
be  ready  to  go  to  heaven  when  they  die;  they 
are  to  watch  that  they  may  be  ready  to  make 
this  world  more  like  heaven  while  they  live. 
The  Bridegroom  is  the  opportunity  for  serv- 
ice. The  opportunity  comes  at  the  most  unex- 
pected moment.  Sometimes,  therefore,  it  finds 
men  ready,  and  sometimes  unready.  Some 
have  supplied  the  lamps  of  their  personalities 
with  the  equipment  which  enables  them  to 
grasp  the  opportunity;  and  some  dillydallying, 
lackadaisical  souls  have  neglected  to  provide 
the  necessary  personal  equipment,  indulging 
the  fond  and  futile  hope  that  they  can  grasp 
the  opportunity  and  shine  in  the  world  with  no 
need  of  a  costly  and  painstaking  preparation. 
The  figure  of  the  parable  thus  understood 
[132] 


clearly  interprets  the  significance  of  Christ's 
command  to  watch,  and  becomes  most  sug- 
gestive to  us  in  our  attempt  to  understand  the 
nature  of  real  and  efficient  Christian  activity. 
The  watchfulness  necessary  in  the  Christian 
is  the  preparedness  of  personal  development. 
It  is  not  enough  for  the  Christian  to  have  good 
intentions;  he  must  fit  himself  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  good  intentions.  Neither  to 
mean  to  keep  from  evil  nor  to  mean  to  do  good 
will  make  one  a  strong  and  active  Christian; 
only  a  preparedness  to  resist  the  evil  and  a 
readiness  to  embrace  the  good  will  make  his 
professed  Christianity  really  worth  while.  Both 
according  to  Christ's  teaching  and  according  to 
the  experience  of  the  human  race,  every  true 
man  must  be  prepared  for  two  emergencies: 
on  the  one  hand  he  must  be  ready  to  meet 
the  temptation  to  do  evil,  and  on  the  other  he 
must  be  ready  for  the  opportunities  to  do  good. 
He  must  watch  for  the  coming  both  of  the 
"  devil ' '  and  of  the  "  Son  of  man. "  The  "  devil 
comes  to  him  as  an  angel  of  light,  wearing  many 
and  varying  guises  of  allurement.  The  "  Son  of 
[133] 


I^i^at  10  €^^tntial 


man"  comes  to  him  in  the  person  of  every 
needy  soul  whom  he  ought  to  help  and  whom 
he  might  help  if  he  were  only  ready. 
Therefore  it  is  a  part  of  the  true  Christian 
activity  for  every  man  to  see  that  the  lamp  of 
his  own  personality  is  fully  equipped.  He  must 
make  and  keep  himself  as  strong  physically 
as  it  is  possible  for  him  to  be.  He  must  ob- 
serve the  laws  of  health  and  of  hygiene.  He 
must  exercise  in  the  open  air.  He  must  be  not 
merely  a  total  abstainer  from  some  things, 
but  temperate  in  his  use  of  all  things.  He 
may  need  every  ounce  of  his  possible  physical 
strength  some  day  to  resist  a  strong  tempta- 
tion or  to  rescue  a  neighbor  from  danger.  Aye, 
he  needs  his  strength  every  day  to  meet  the 
daily  temptations  and  to  help  him  to  bear  the 
trials  and  to  perform  the  duties  of  his  every- 
day life. 

The  Christian,  too,  must  cultivate  his  mind. 
He  must  not  only  study  the  thoughts  of  others; 
he  must  learn  to  think  for  himself.  He  should 
be  clearly  sure  of  his  own  position  upon  all 
questions  of  domestic,  industrial,  social,  po- 
[134] 


W^at  10  ti^e  CjsJjsmttal  actttit^ 

litical,  and  religious  importance.  He  must  be 
able  "to  give  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in 
him."  This,  too,  because  a  clear  mind  is  one 
of  the  best  defenses  against  the  insidious 
suggestions  of  evil,  and  because  by  his  clear 
thinking  he  will  always  be  ready  for  the  oppor- 
tunity to  illuminate  the  pathway  of  his  ques- 
tioning, doubting,  despairing  friend. 
Also,  the  true  Christian  must  attend  to  the 
distinctively  spiritual  equipment  of  his  per- 
sonality. He  must  use  the  means  of  spirit- 
ual exercise  which  are  the  most  beneficial  to 
himself,  whether  that  exercise  consists  for  the 
most  part  in  private  prayer  and  personal 
devotions  or  whether  it  be  found  in  the  more 
energetic  wrestlings  with  the  powers  of  evil. 
He  must  keep  his  own  "conscience  void  of 
offense  towards  God,"  for  thus  only  will  he 
be  able  to  withstand  the  "fiery  darts  of  the 
evil,"  and  thus  only  will  he  win  the  confidence 
of  those  men  in  need  whom  he  must  be  ever 
ready  to  help. 

All  these  are  distinctly  personal  equipments. 

They  are  things  which  every  man  must  get 

[135] 


W}^at  ijs  (B^^mtial 


for  himself  or  go  without.  The  wise  virgins 
did  not  give  to  their  fooHsh  sisters  because 
they  were  contemptibly  stingy,  but  because 
they  were  unable  to  give  what  was  required. 
"You  can  drive  a  horse  to  water  but  you  can- 
not make  him  drink."  You  can  tell  the  youth 
the  underlying  principles  of  health  and  strength, 
but  you  cannot  give  him  a  strong  body.  You 
may  show  him  the  way  of  knowledge,  but  you 
cannot  make  him  learned.  You  may  expound 
to  men  moral  and  religious  precepts,  but  the 
men  will  continue  immoral  and  irreligious  so 
long  as  they  will.  There  are  some  things 
which  every  man  must  "go  and  buy"  for 
himself;  and  the  cost  price  of  these  things 
must  be  paid  in  the  hard  coin  of  one's  own 
personal  experiences. 

So  there  is  a  true  sense  in  which  some  of  the 
activity  of  the  Christian  is  concerned  only 
with  himself.  And  here  is  the  excuse  for 
preachers'  continued  insistence  upon  the  ne- 
cessity of  personal  salvation.  Define  personal 
salvation  as  personal  equipment  for  service; 
describe  the  method  of  its  attainment  as  that 
[136] 


spirit  of  watchfulness  which  seeks  to  be  always 
prepared;  remember  that  the  end  of  the  sal- 
vation is  not  merely  heaven  for  one's  self,  but 
heaven  for  others;  and  we  have  before  us  the 
true  relation  of  the  Christian's  personal  salva- 
tion to  the  vital  Christian  activity.  To  watch 
with  every  fortification  of  defense  guarded 
that  he  may  not  fall  into  temptation;  to  watch 
with  every  implement  of  service  prepared  for 
instant  use  that  he  may  be  ready  for  the  oppor- 
tunity of  helpfulness: — this  must  always  be 
done  by  the  man  who  would  take  his  part  in 
the  activity  of  the  religion  of  Jesus. 

Sec.  2.  Christianity  and  Personal  Sacrifice 

Most  Christian  teachers  have  agreed  that  all 
truly  Christian  activity  must  involve  some 
personal  sacrifice.  But  agreeing  in  the  neces- 
sity of  the  sacrifice  they  have  disagreed  both  as 
to  its  purpose  and  nature. 

The  purpose  of  the  sacrifice  has  sometimes 
been  taught  as  the  propitiation  of  God.  This 
was  apparently  the  purpose  sought  by  the 
children  of  Israel  in  their  sacrifices  of  the  first 
[137] 


W^^at  i^  a^^mtial 


fruits  of  the  harvest  and  of  the  best  animals 
of  the  flocks  and  herds.  The  underlying  idea 
of  these  "burnt  offerings"  seems  to  have  been 
not  merely  to  show  their  gratitude  to  God  for 
past  favors,  but  to  insure  his  continued  benevo- 
lence. The  God  of  the  people  of  the  Exodus 
was  conceived  as  a  jealous  God.  That  He 
might  not  turn  away  His  face  in  anger,  these 
uninstructed  slaves  offered  Him  the  best  of 
their  possessions. 

It  would  be  unnecessary  in  this  enlightened 
age  to  speak  of  this  mistaken  conception  of 
the  purpose  of  sacrifice  were  there  not  so  many 
evidences  of  the  persistence  of  the  crude  idea 
even  in  the  minds  of  those  who  supposedly 
have  learned  something  of  the  true  nature  of 
God's  love  from  Christ  himself.  There  are 
some  Christian  people  whose  whole  religious 
activity  seems  to  partake  of  this  nature  of  a 
propitiatory  sacrifice.  They  go  to  church  be- 
cause they  feel  that  church  attendance  will  be 
pleasing  to  God.  They  abstain  from  certain 
amusements  and  self-indulgences  because  their 
self-denials  will  win  God's  approval.  They 
[138] 


give  their  money  to  charities  and  to  benevo- 
lences, not  always  because  they  want  to  help 
these  worthy  and  needy  causes,  but  sometimes 
because  in  some  way  they  believe  their  gifts 
will  win  them  divine  favor,  or,  in  their  own 
vernacular,  "bring  them  good  luck." 
The  reason  that  none  of  these  so-called  sacri- 
fices can  be  called  true  Christian  activity  is 
because  they  all  arise  from  a  spirit  of  selfish- 
ness. When  one  denies  himself  some  present 
desire  for  something  in  the  future  which  he 
believes  will  be  more  desirable,  we  rightly 
call  him  prudent,  but  such  selfish  prudence 
does  not  entitle  liim  to  the  holy  name  of  Chris- 
tian. All  self-denials  for  the  purpose  of  win- 
ning God's  favor  must  be  catalogued  only  under 
the  head  of  deeds  of  prudence.  If  the  children 
of  Israel  believed  that  God's  favor  was  worth 
keeping,  and  that  it  could  not  be  continued 
in  their  behalf  without  the  sacrifice  of  rams 
and  bullocks,  they  did  wisely  to  offer  the  sac- 
rifices. If  a  professed  Christian  to-day  be- 
lieves that  God's  favor  is  worth  preserving 
and  that  he  cannot  keep  it  unless  he  gives  up 
[139] 


Wi^at  tjs  €^^mtial 


playing  games  of  chance,  he  would  be  very 
foolish  and  imprudent  not  to  make  the  re- 
quired self-denial.  If  he  would  rather  go  to 
heaven  when  he  dies  than  to  go  to  horse  races 
while  he  lives,  and  if  he  honestly  thinks  he 
cannot  do  both,  he  is  wise  in  choosing  that 
which  he  more  earnestly  desires.  But  let  not 
this  selfish  prudence  of  his  be  ennobled  by  the 
name  of  Christian  sacrifice.  The  purpose  of 
that  sacrifice  which  is  really  a  part  of  vital 
Christian  activity  cannot  be  to  win  anything 
for  one's  self,  not  even  the  favor  of  God  or  the 
eternal  bliss  of  heaven. 

Again,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  purpose  of 
some  personal  sacrifices  that  have  been  digni- 
fied by  the  name  of  Christian,  have  their  real, 
though  not  apparent  purpose,  in  the  propitia- 
tion of  men.  Many  a  Christian  man  has 
limited  his  freedom,  both  of  thought  and  of 
action,  to  meet  the  demands  of  some  hard- 
shelled,  narrow-minded  fanatics  who  have 
mistaken  their  own  prejudiced  notions  for  the 
eternal  decrees  of  God.  It  is  true  that  the 
apostle  Paul  enjoined  a  loving  thought  for  the 
[140] 


"weaker  brother"  but  he  did  not  recommend 
a  timorous  bondage  to  the  rehgious  bigot. 
When  one  refrains  from  doing  anything  con- 
cerning which  he  has  freedom  of  choice  and 
action  for  fear  some  of  his  friends  may  mis- 
understand and  disapprove,  he  is  certainly 
acting  within  his  rights.  If  he  prefers  the  good 
opinion  of  these  friends  to  the  exercise  of  his 
hberty  in  certain  directions,  let  him  make  the 
choice  according  to  his  preference.  But  let 
him  not  believe  that  he  is  any  better  Chris- 
tian for  this  self-denial.  No  self-denial  which 
seeks  only  the  approval  of  men  can  be  included 
in  the  sacrifices  that  partake  of  the  nature  of 
real  Christian  activity. 

The  sacrifice  involved  in  the  necessary  activity 
of  the  Christian  is  the  sacrifice  demanded  by 
love  for  the  purpose  of  helping  someone  else. 
Just  as  Jesus  did  not  ascend  Calvary  to  win 
God's  favor  or  to  meet  with  the  approval  of 
men,  so  the  true  sacrifice  of  the  Christian  must 
be  purged  from  all  self-seeking  motives. 
The  nature  of  the  sacrifice  that  is  Christlike  is 
not  merely  a  self-denial,  it  is  a  self-impartation. 
[141] 


W\^at  ijs  Cjs^ential 


Christians  are  not  just  to  deny  themselves  some- 
thing now  for  some  future  good  by  and  by,  they 
are  to  give  something  of  themselves  to  others. 
Christian  sacrifice  is  the  natural  expression  of 
love.  The  man  who  has  not  learned  to  love 
can  know  nothing  of  sacrifice.  He  who  really 
does  love  need  not  worry  about  the  hardness  of 
the  sacrifice,  for  to  him  the  sacrifice  will  be 
natural  and  easy. 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  talk  to  the  would-be 
Christian  of  Christianity's  cost  in  terms  of  sac- 
rifice. It  is  like  trying  to  compel  him  to  under- 
stand a  page  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  before  he  has 
learned  even  the  Hebrew  alphabet.  Teach  the 
youthful  student  of  Christianity  first  the  alpha- 
bet of  love.  Show  him  the  wonderful  love  of 
God.  Picture  to  him  the  needs  of  God's  loved 
children  whom  he  can  help.  Be  gentle  and 
patient  with  him  until  he  can  apply  the  lesson 
in  simple  deeds  of  kindness  and  mercy.  And 
lo,  almost  before  he  knows  it,  he  has  come  to 
express  himself  naturally  in  the  terms  of  Chris- 
tian sacrifice. 

No  man  can  be  a  truly  active  Christian  who 
[142] 


does  not  give  of  himself  to  make  others  better. 
He  may  make  the  sacrifice  in  many  different 
ways.  Something  of  himself  he  may  give  as 
he  offers  the  money  which  is  the  product  of 
his  industry.  Something  of  himself  he  may 
give  in  the  surrender  of  the  self-indulgence 
which  to  him  would  be  pleasing.  Something 
of  himself  he  may  bestow  in  the  unselfish  use 
of  his  time  and  in  the  thoughtful,  benevolent 
expenditure  of  his  energy.  Whoever  gives  of 
himself  in  anyway  for  the  good  of  his  neigh- 
bor is  engaged  in  the  activity  which  is  truly 
Christian. 

"  Who  gives  of  himself  with  his  gift  feeds  three — 
Himself,  his  hungering  neighbor  and  me." 

Sec.  3.  Christianity  and  Philanthropy 
Some  thinkers  have  found  the  complete  de- 
scription of  the  Christian  life  as  taught  by  Jesus 
to  lie  in  the  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan. 
These  have  sometimes  read  into  the  parable 
not  only  the  commendation  of  acts  of  sympa- 
thetic service,  but  also  the  condemnation  of 
all  forms  of  professed  personal  religion.  Jesus 
[143] 


Wf^at  i^  Cjsjsenttal 


did  not  bid  the  inquiring  lawyer  to  imitate 
the  priest  and  the  Levite,  but  to  go  and  do 
like  the  Samaritan.  Therefore,  it  is  argued, 
he  meant  to  imply  that  Christians  were  not  to 
be  avowed  religionists  at  all,  but  only  helpful 
philanthropists. 

The  century  in  which  we  are  now  living,  as 
has  already  been  remarked  in  a  preceding 
connection,  is  one  in  which  this  philanthropic 
conception  of  Christianity  is  especially  pre- 
dominant. Everywhere  about  us  we  find  men 
who  openly  claim  to  have  little  regard  for  pro- 
fessed Christianity,  but  who  give  much  time, 
money  and  thought  to  specific  forms  of  phil- 
anthropic and  charitable  endeavor.  Hospitals 
and  institutions  for  the  blind,  the  deaf  and  the 
dumb ;  schools,  colleges,  libraries,  reading  rooms 
and  gymnasiums ;  homes  for  the  aged,  the  des- 
titute and  the  fallen;  orphanages,  social  settle- 
ments and  city  missions ; — these  are  only  a  few 
of  the  many  enterprises  for  the  betterment  of 
humanity  which  receive  the  generous  support 
of  thousands  of  people  who  do  not  profess  to  be 
Christians  at  all. 

[  144  ] 


W^at  10  tl^e  tmntial  ^ctiUtv 

To  all  these  home  institutions  of  salvation  we 
must  also  add  to-day  the  evidence  of  an  in- 
creasing interest  in  foreign  missions,  and  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  increase  of 
interest  in  missions  is  manifestly  due  to  the 
somewhat  recent  change  in  the  motive  of 
missions.  So  long  as  missionaries  sought  only 
to  rescue  heathen  from  an  eternal  hell  they 
received  little  encouragement  from  practical 
philanthropists;  but  when  the  missionaries 
avowed  their  purpose  to  fit  heathen  people 
for  a  healthy,  intelligent,  serviceable  life  on  the 
earth,  philanthropists  began  to  rally  to  their 
support. 

There  should  be  little  need  here  to  discuss  the 
question  of  the  exact  identity  of  philanthropy 
and  Christianity.  Christianity  has  to  do  with 
all  of  a  man 's  life ;  philanthropy  with  that  part 
of  his  life  which  is  associated  with  his  fellows. 
Christianity  concerns  itself  with  the  man's  re- 
lation to  his  God  as  well  as  to  his  fellow  man, 
and  with  his  relation  to  himself  as  well  as  to 
either.  If  there  were  only  one  man  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth,  that  man  conceivably  could 
[145] 


WW  i^  CjSjsential 


still  be  a  Christian  though  obviously  he  could 
not  be  a  philanthropist.  He  could  try  to  be 
actuated  by  the  spirit  of  him  who  overcame 
temptations  alone  in  the  wilderness  and  who 
communed  with  his  Father  alone  on  the  moun- 
tain side,  even  though  he  could  not  undertake 
a  ministry  for  his  fellow  men.  But  this  is 
imaginary.  So  long  as  there  is  more  than  one 
man  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,  no  one  can 
call  himself  a  true  Christian  unless  like  Christ 
he  loves  and  serves  his  brethren.  Jesus  in  the 
parable  did  not  condemn  all  profession  of  re- 
ligion, but  only  its  selfish  and  formal  profes- 
sion. 

Had  the  Levite  ministered  to  the  destitute  and 
wounded  traveler,  he  would  doubtless  have 
been  commended  as  was  the  Samaritan.  Else- 
where Jesus  emphatically  enforced  the  need  of  a 
public  profession  of  religion  (vide  Matt.  10 :  32, 
33)  and  the  only  time  when  he  described  the 
whole  Christian  life,  he  clothed  his  description 
in  the  two  commandments,  of  which  love  to 
man  was  the  subject  only  of  the  second.  The 
first  was,  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God." 
[146] 


The  second  was  like  to  it,  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor  as  thyself."  (Mark  12:  30,  31.) 
Philanthropy,  then,  must  be  considered  not  as 
identical  with  Christianity,  but  as  the  inevi- 
table expression  of  Christianity  in  human  rela- 
tionship. We  must  consider  the  deed  of  the 
Good  Samaritan  as  essentially  a  Christlike 
deed,  and  we  must  consider  the  multitude  of 
organized  forms  of  charities  and  missions  as 
so  many  opportunities  for  the  true  Christian  to 
express  his  Christianity  in  human  terms.  Phil- 
anthropy is  the  human  language  of  that  religion 
which  in  its  essence  is  divine.  Just  as  one's 
inner  thoughts  can  be  expressed  outwardly  only 
by  words  and  signs,  so  one's  inner  relations  with 
the  God  of  love  and  a  Christlike  spirit  can  be 
expressed  outwardly  only  in  the  human  lan- 
guage of  philanthropy. 

Sec.  4,   The  Quest  for  the  Kingdom  of  God 

When  Jesus  taught  his  hearers  to  seek  first 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  he  made  it  very  clear 
that  the  primary  activity  of  the  Christian  life 
had  its  relation  to  the  service  of  God  as  King. 
[147] 


Wl^at  ijs  €?5?Jcntial 


Unfortunately,  however,  he  did  not  in  this 
instance  so  clearly  define  the  nature  of  God's 
Kingdom  as  to  preclude  all  possibility  of  mis- 
understanding. Thus,  though  Christians  have 
agreed  that  the  work  of  Christians  is  to  pro- 
mote God's  Kingdom,  they  have  not  always 
agreed  as  to  precisely  what  work  will  best 
promote  it. 

Some  have  interpreted  the  Kingdom  of  God 
to  have  reference  only  to  a  future  state  of 
existence.  They  have  made  the  term  synony- 
mous with  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  under- 
standing heaven  to  signify  the  spiritual  happi- 
ness of  those  who  have  been  emancipated 
from  earthly  limitations.  To  these,  to  seek 
the  Kingdom  of  God  has  meant  only  to  seek 
heaven.  By  logical  inference,  according  to 
this  interpretation  no  man  can  be  a  citizen  of 
God's  Kingdom  until  after  he  has  died.  All, 
therefore,  that  he  needs  to  do  in  this  state  of 
his  existence  is  to  fit  himself  and  others  for 
post-mortem  citizenship.  Much  as  the  boy  in 
school  theoretically  devotes  himself  to  the  prep- 
aration for  citizenship  in  his  country,  so  men 
[148] 


in  this  life  are  to  devote  themselves  only  to 
preparation  for  the  life  to  come.  The  earthly 
activity  of  the  Christian  is  thus  conceived  in 
its  last  analysis  to  be  unsocial.  If  he  acknowl- 
edges any  responsibility  for  the  society  in 
which  he  now  lives,  it  is  not  a  responsibility 
to  make  the  present  society  better,  but  only 
to  make  the  present  members  of  society  more 
fit  for  a  future  existence. 

But  while  no  careful  student  of  the  teachings 
of  Christ  can  fail  to  recognize  that  he  suggested 
more  or  less  definitely  a  future  life,  the  un- 
prejudiced student  will  observe  that  the  picture 
of  God's  Kingdom  in  heaven  is  at  best  very 
dimly  outlined,  while  the  conception  of  God's 
Kingdom  upon  the  earth  stands  out  in  boldest 
relief. 

Christ's  picture  of  God's  Kingdom  is  one  pic- 
ture. There  are  not  two  kingdoms  of  God, 
one  here  and  one  there.  But  the  Kingdom 
here,  which  constitutes  the  foreground  of  the 
picture,  insensibly  becomes  merged  into  the 
more  obscure  but  perhaps  more  beautiful  lines 
of  the  distant  Kingdom  beyond.  The  true  per- 
1,149] 


W}^at  ijs  €0jSenttal 


spective  of  Christ's  teachings  makes  the  King- 
dom of  God  upon  the  earth  of  primary  im- 
portance, though  one  who  views  the  whole  of 
his  teachings  will  catch  something  of  the  glory 
dimly  outlined  in  the  background  beyond  the 
distant  hills. 

With  this  picture  of  Christ  before  us,  we  must 
not  say  that  a  Christian  shall  be  engaged  prin- 
cipally in  the  preparation  either  of  himself  or 
of  his  fellows  for  heaven.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  must  not  forbid  him  to  be  interested 
in  that  which  assuredly  was  a  part  of  Christ's 
teachings.  We  can  neither  bid  the  Christian 
to  spurn  earthly  conditions  while  he  seeks 
heaven,  nor  to  forget  heavenly  conditions 
while  he  works  upon  the  earth.  It  must  be 
the  one  object  of  the  Christian's  activity  to 
harmonize  the  earthly  with  the  heavenly.  He 
must  strive  so  skilfully  to  blend  the  two  that 
no  man  can  say,  "Here  earth  ends  and  there 
begins  heaven,"  but  so  that  all  will  say,  "We 
cannot  tell  where  earthly  conditions  cease,  for 
truly  the  glory  of  heaven  itself  has  filled  the 
earth." 

[150] 


This  is  the  ideal  state  for  which  the  true  Chris- 
tian must  toil,  the  state  of  a  heaven-like  earth. 
The  true  Christian  will  strive  for  heaven,  but 
not  merely  for  a  future  heaven.  He  will  strive 
for  a  present  heaven.  He  will  strive  to  fulfill 
the  petition  which  the  Savior  himself  taught, 
"Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be  done  upon 
the  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven." 
It  follows,  therefore,  that  the  Christian  will  be 
necessarily  interested  in  everything  that  per- 
tains to  earthly  conditions.  He  will  work  for 
individuals,  because  individuals  are  a  part  of 
society,  and  because  each  individual  is  a 
brother  subject  of  his  King.  He  will  be  in- 
terested in  all  that  concerns  the  individual, 
ministering  to  his  body  as  well  as  to  his  soul, 
promoting  his  intellectual  welfare  as  well  as 
his  spiritual  welfare,  serving  him  on  week- 
days as  well  as  on  Sundays,  by  an  honest  day's 
toil  as  well  as  by  a  religious  testimony,  in  the 
workshop  at  the  time  of  business  as  well  as  in 
the  church  at  the  hour  of  worship.  Especially 
will  he  be  interested  in  that  individual  who  is 
most  in  need.  He  will  help  the  man  in  need 
[151] 


I^l^at  ij3  €0jsentlal 


according  to  his  ability,  rejoicing  if  he  can 
but  "give  a  cup  of  cold  water"  in  the  spirit  of 
a  disciple  of  Jesus. 

But  the  Christian,  too,  will  be  interested  in 
the  larger  problems  of  the  body  of  God's  chil- 
dren in  their  relations  to  each  other.  He  will 
not  rest  content  so  long  as  evil  social  condi- 
tions remain  unrighted.  He  will  lift  his  voice 
in  indignant  protest  against  all  forms  of  le- 
galized injustice  and  iniquity.  He  will  exercise 
his  rights  of  civil  citizenship  as  one  who  is  as 
well  a  citizen  of  the  Kingdom  divine.  He  will 
strive  so  far  as  in  him  lies  to  guard  the  sanctity 
of  the  home,  to  preserve  from  selfish,  political 
encroachments  the  interests  of  the  school,  to 
maintain  the  purity  of  the  Church,  and  to  pro- 
mote the  best  Christian  welfare  of  the  State. 
His  work  will  be  for  society  as  well  as  for  the 
individual,  and  his  work  will  not  be  complete 
until  all  men  have  become  one  in  Christ  even 
as  Christ  was  one  with  God. 
By  the  exercise  of  a  dauntless  courage  and  of  a 
patient  sympathy,  by  exhortation  and  by  admoni- 
tion, by  precept  and  by  example,  the  Christian 
[152] 


I^l^at  i^  tl^e  tmntial  actititt 

will  strive  to  make  this  world  the  Kingdom  of  his 
Lord  and  Savior.  And  striving  for  God's  King- 
dom here,  he  will  open  the  doors  of  heaven 
eternal,  both  for  him,self  and  for  those  over  whom, 
God  may  have  given  him  influence. 


[153] 


